Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies

A member of the American Council of Learned Societies

President Guntis Šmidchens [email protected] Baltic studies newsletter Department of Scandinavian Studies University of Washington Box 353420 Convergences in Baltic Studies: Past, Present and Future Seattle, WA 98195-3420 PRESENT AND FUTURE CONVERGENCES President - Elect Vėjas Liulevičius, AABS President Elect, 2010-2012, Associate Professor of Vėjas Liulevičius [email protected] History, University of Tennessee University of Tennessee Since the founding of AABS in 1968, the Baltic world has of course changed beyond all recognition, and this seems an especially apt time to take stock of the Vice Presidents many convergences and continuities so evident today. In these essays, presidents of the AABS look back to evaluate a great store of shared Conferences Aldis Purs experience. They note key continuities: the succession of generations caught up in the University of Washington work of the AABS; the challenges of “thinking Baltically” in terms of conceiving of Bal- tic Studies as a whole greater than its parts of individual histories and cultures of Baltic Professional Development peoples studied in isolation from one another; the continuing challenge of engaging spe- Daunis Auers Vėjas Liulevičius cialists in the Baltic countries themselves in the larger undertaking of Baltic Studies. University of Latvia (continued on p. 4) Publications Bradley D. Woodworth AABS Archives: Twelfth Conference on Baltic Studies University of New Haven Historical 1990 Presidential Address by Andrejs Plakans Secretary Some decades ago among the political history of the past ticators among us. Nonetheless, Laimonas Briedis scholars who thought about soci- year, but I would suspect that it the idea of convergence as such University of British Columbia eties on a world wide scale there has not fared so well. Indeed I is still a valid hypothesis: cer- existed a theory that maintained would suspect that it probably tainly it is still one of the many Treasurer than in the course of evolution ceased to be very influential long patterns of historical change Kenneth Smith Communist and non-Commu- before the present, and, as an that can happen and have hap- Millersville University nist societies would converge by historian, I can’t help but feel a pened in the course of historical Student Representative becoming more like each other. certain degree of Schadenfreude time and therefore it can be used Amanda Swain I have not checked the current that historical events have once to explore the present. University of Washington status of this theory in light of again confounded the prognos- (continued on p. 10) Director-at-Large Volume XIX Number 1 (109), Winter 2010 Inta Gale Carpenter In this Issue Indiana University Convergences in Baltic Studies: Past, Present and Future...... 1 Australasian Committee Andrew Blumbergs Vėjas Liulevičius, Andrejs Plakans, Gundar King, Jaan Puhvel, Ilse Lehiste, Valters University of Melbourne Nollendorfs, William R. Schmalstieg, Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, Rein Taagepera, Tomas Administrative Executive Director A. Venclova, Toivo U. Raun, Violeta Kelertas, Thomas Palm, Juris Dreifelds, Saulius Irena Blekys Sužiedėlis, Thomas Salumets, Inta Gāle Carpenter, Guntis Šmidchens [email protected] [email protected] Andrejs Plakans. Twelfth Conference on Baltic Studies...... 1 Preparations for SASS-AABS Conference...... 3 Academic Executive Director Olavi Arens Aldis Purs, Dancing Shoes and Common Approaches...... 11 Armstrong Atlantic University Upcoming Conferences and events...... 20 Editor, Journal of Baltic Studies Michael Biggins. Baltic Studies Collections in North American Research Libraries...... 21 Terry D. Clark Guntis Šmidchens. US-Baltic Fulbright Scholars Exchanges, 1993-2009...... 22 Creighton University Rasa Baukuvienė. US Academic Exchanges with Lithuania...... 22 Editor, Baltic Studies Newsletter Jane Susi, Tiiu Vitsut. Four Decades of US-Estonian Exchanges...... 23 Rimas Žilinskas Ingrida Bodniece, Academic Exchanges Between Latvia and the United States...... 23 [email protected] George Washington University Amanda Swain. US-Baltic Fulbright Exchanges...... 24 AABS Annual Report, 2007-2008...... 25 http://depts.washington.edu/aabs/ 14743 Braemar Crescent Way, Darnestown, MD 20878-3911, Tel: (301) 977-8491 Fax: (301) 977-8492, [email protected] AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 1 The Baltic Studies Summer Institute (BALSSI) offers intensive Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian language courses and a cultural enhancement program which introduces students to the rich world of Baltic history and culture. The Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia (CREECA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will host the Baltic Studies Summer Institute (BALSSI) in the summer of 2010 (June 14-August 6). First- and second-year* Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian language courses will be offered, as well as lectures (in English) on Baltic history and culture and a variety of cultural events related to the Baltic lands. BALSSI is sponsored by a consortium of twelve U.S. universities and receives additional support from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Lithuanian Foundation. BALSSI at the University of Wisconsin-Madison would like to acknowledge the generous assistance we have received from Madison-Vilnius Sister Cities and Žaibas Lithuanian Dancers. Read about BALSSI events hosted by these two local com- munity organizations in the 2009 MVSC Summer Newsletter. In addition, we would like to thank the U.S. Baltic Foundation for their collaboration with BALSSI. For more information about BALSSI 2010, visit our website http://www.creeca.wisc.edu/balssi/ or contact Nancy Hein- gartner, BALSSI program coordinator, [email protected], 1-608-262-3379. *Scheduling of classes at the second-year level is contingent on sufficient enrollment, and may be canceled due to low enrollment. Please apply as early as possible to help ensure your class will be offered. 2 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 Preparations for SASS-AABS Conference

Not long after Santa Claus made his list and checked it twice, the list making tasks fell AABS Membership to the organizers of the upcoming joint SASS-AABS Conference. Together they sifted meeting Friday, April through more than 350 paper proposals and began the long, detailed work of creating panels. 23, 2010, Slowly, but surely, the upcoming conference is taking shape. What can you expect? There are panels on Ibsen and nothing but Ibsen for Scandinavianists as well as on 4:45-6:00 pm the current work of the official, state sponsored history commissions of the Baltic States. Plestcheeff Auditorium Those who want first and foremost to attend a conference of their beloved learned society will be at home and comfortable. The conference, however, also breaks regional Downtown, borders and includes many panels that examine the larger Baltic Sea region or panels that Seattle Art Museum examine individual themes as they apply to Baltic and Scandinavian scholars. Equally, the preliminary conference programs complement each other seamlessly. The Scandinavian specialists that flock to a panel on Nordic church history may well follow their interests to Preliminary Conference Schedule panels that look at developments in Baltic churches. Likewise, the many Baltic scholars Thursday, April 22 presenting papers broadly on issues of identity will find many similar concerns in the SASS program. The conference promises to be something familiar and something new. 8:30-12:00 AABS Board Meeting For this conference, all AABS paper proposals were submitted to the same place, (Executive Board Room) there was not a division by discipline as has often been the case. As a result, expect 11:00-4:00 pm SASS Winery Tour more interdisciplinary panels that place geographers, political scientists, and historians 12:00-1:00 pm Lunch together if there is a strong, uniform theme or subject matter among them. In practice, 1:00-2:30 pm AABS Session 1 these panels may have some drawbacks as each discipline employs its own jargon and perspective, but the cumulative effect should be an opportunity to peer over the walls 2:30-2:45 pm Coffee Break surrounding our own gardens to study the work of our neighbors (to paraphrase and steal 2:45-4:15 pm AABS Session 2 from the opening salvo of the first issue of the Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 7:00-9:00 pm Welcome Reception as quoted by Norman Davies in Europe: A History, p. 955-956). The joint conference with the Scandinavian scholars, another opportunity to see the work of our geographical Friday, April 23 neighbors, seems particularly appropriate for this interdisciplinary approach. 8:30-10:00 AABS Session 3 Also new to the conference, and borrowed from SASS, is a designated lunch event. SASS 10:00-10:15 Coffee Break presents lunches by discipline and language, which in practice are a wonderful blending of a social event and informal networking. At the historians’ lunch, you are very likely to 10:15-11:45 AABS Session 4 be in the same room, eating the same food, as many of the historians in the field. A quick 11:45-1:00 pm Lunch round of introductions that focus on ongoing work merge with table conversation and by 1:00-2:30 pm AABS Session 5 the end of lunch, you know scholars socially, and you have a sense of what the field as a 2:30-2:45 pm Coffee Break whole is working on. This is an invaluable opportunity for graduate students particularly. The Baltic lunch, which will be held on Friday, April 23rd, will include an address by 2:45-4:15 pm AABS Session 6 Pauls Raudseps, a prominent journalist, on the state of the media in contemporary Latvia. 4:45-6:00 pm AABS General Details about the lunch will be included in the on-line registration form. Members Meeting (Seattle Art Conference registration will be done on-line through the conference website http:// Museum) depts.washington.edu/sass2010/, and people who register by March 31, 2010 will 7:00-10:00 pm Baltic Film Night at receive a discounted price. The conference website will continue to develop and evolve the Seattle Art Museum as the conference approaches. Keep returning to it regularly for the latest on hotel 10:00 pm AABS Graduate Student accommodations (there is already a link that leads to hotel bookings at the Crowne Plaza, Social Event the Conference Hotel, at conference discount rates), on information about the conference’s Saturday, April 24 social calendar, and for the conference program (potentially including paper abstracts to 8:30-10:00 AABS Session 7 help people choose which panels to attend). The conference will also include a Baltic Film evening at the Seattle Art Museum. Friday 10:00-10:30 Coffee Break night at 7 pm, conveniently after the AABS members’ meeting that will also take place in 10:30-12:00 AABS Session 8 the Seattle Art Museum from 4:45 pm-6:00 pm – so everyone will already be there. AABS 12:00-1:15 pm Lunch members will have the opportunity to listen to the President’s Address from our incoming President, Professor Vėjas Liulevičius, wander the world class collections of the Seattle Art 1:15-2:45 pm AABS Session 9 Museum, and eat a quick dinner at Taste, the museum restaurant that showcases local cuisine, 2:45-3:15 pm Coffee Break before settling into their theater seats to watch a collection of short films from the Baltic 3:15-4:45 pm AABS Session 10 States (including Edmunds Jansons’ Little Bird’s Diary [2007] and Kaspar Jancis’ award- winning Krokodil [2009]) before the feature presentation, The Bug Trainer (2008). The 6:00-7:00 pm No-Host Bar film’s director, Rasa Miškinyte, will be on hand to introduce the film and answer questions 7:00-10:00 pm Dinner/Dance afterward. Keep checking the conference webpage for more information on the film event. AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 3 Forum, Convergences in Baltic Studies, Past, Present and Future

Present, and Future Convergences (continued from p. 1) itself was a Western invention, the field was likely to be affected by Against the backdrop of such continuities, certain features of our these changes in some way. One possible future was the disinte- organizational life emerge all the more clearly. First, we look back gration of the field, as Western Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian on a rich tradition of lived interdisciplinarity in our conferences, scholars rejoined the (possibly) liberated intellectual communities our journal (which has gone from strength to strength), and our in- of those three countries and reoriented themselves away from the teraction as members. This is a formidable base to build on for our “Baltic” concept. Another was the absorption of “Baltic Studies” future undertakings. Second, even with (or especially because of) into some larger regional studies field as yet unborn and identi- the realization of Baltic independence, particular challenges remain fied (perhaps “Northern European Studies”). A third possibility with us, and are familiar because they are of a piece with those of was the integration of “Baltic Studies” of the Western variety with past decades. These include the need to raise general awareness of some analogous version of “Baltic Studies” anchored in the trans- the Baltic world and with it the profile of Baltic Studies, focusing formed intellectual life of the three Baltic countries. The premise of on a crucial strategic region today. This takes on renewed urgency all these outcomes, of course, was the achievement of real freedom in the present with worrying attempts to rewrite and distort his- in the Baltic region. After some thought, it seemed to me that some tory, as evidenced in this summer’s commemorations of the start form of the third alternative was most likely. This judgment was of World War II, when Russian media sought to whitewash Stalin’s based in part on the interest and receptivity already being exhibited role as a collaborator with the Nazis in initiating that conflict and in the Baltic countries toward Western modes of scholarship and, ventured suggestions that Poland had been to blame or that the specifically, toward the activities of AABS; and in part, on the expe- Baltic states were not in fact occupied. Another, and related, chal- rience of the AABS itself, which by 1990 was already twenty-two lenge which abides is the question of how to give more durable years old and had over time experienced various kinds of “conver- institutional form to Baltic Studies, to give permanence to all that it gences” within its own ranks. If this were possible among Western means as a field of scholarship and research. Baltic scholars, it was at least as strong a possibility that something The most fortunate convergence here is that our established tra- similar might happen in the Baltic region, within the regions and ditions of scholarship in Baltic Studies and the demands of the mo- with Western colleagues, once the rigid controls of the Party had ment coincide. weakened and – who knew – perhaps disappeared entirely. During the post-1990 decades, however, the reality that came into being did not fit any of the alternative futures envisaged in Reflections on Convergences Twenty Years LateR 1990. Perhaps the most readily identifiable progress was made in Andrejs Plakans, Profes- what in 1990 I termed “physical convergence.” By definition, this sor Emeritus of History, Iowa type of convergence – involving the movement back and forth of State University. AABS Presi- individual scholars – could never involve large numbers. The field dent 1988-1990 of Baltic Studies had never been overpopulated, but the types of In June 1990 when I was priv- physical convergence in time became impressive indeed. Sever- ileged to give my “Convergen- al past presidents of AABS – the tip of a small iceberg – became ces” presidential address to the prominent in post-1991 Baltic-area politics. The AABS itself had a AABS, we all understood that branch office in the Baltic region for a time and to this day contin- the unprecedented events un- ues to be known in the area. For Western Balticists, participation folding in the USSR’s Baltic re- in the intellectual life of their former homelands eventually became publics made prediction hazard- almost routine, as westerners attended Baltic-area conferences and ous. The parliaments (Supreme their Eastern colleagues formed a significant presence in Western Andrejs Plakans Councils) of Lithuania, Latvia, meetings. Fellowship programs brought a steady stream of east- and Estonia had all proclaimed independence in the spring of 1990, erners to the West, and westerners spent longish periods of time and similar changes in 1989 in all the lands East of the “iron cur- as visiting professors in the Baltic region, in some cases helping tain” seemed to be promising the end of the old world order. But to found new academic institutions. Unfortunately, no aggregate there were probably few believers in historical inevitability at the statistics are available about this phenomenon but the pattern has 1990 meeting, and Balticists, being familiar with the complex his- held steady for the past two decades. These seasonal academic tory of the area, knew the difference between wishful thinking and migrations had visible consequences. If twenty years ago the on-the-ground reality. Enthusiasm about proclamations was one characteristics of almost all research studies placed them into the thing. But the unpredictable response of the “center” in Moscow, two recognizable categories – “Western publications” and “So- the hesitant collective attitudes of the Western democracies, the viet publications” – this distinction disappeared relatively quickly. uncertain sustainability of non-violence among Baltic-area activ- If two decades ago Western and Baltic scholars still viewed each ists – all these and other variables made projections of the future a other with polite suspicion, not knowing exactly what to expect, chancy affair. the international community of Balticists nowadays has no such I remember searching my mind for a general framework for internal divisions. Its members have coalesced (converged) and my impending remarks – one that would make the address sound now comprise a single entity, with English and German frequently “presidential” but at the same time express my bred-in-the-bone serving as the common languages of discourse. Westerners no historian’s skepticism toward confident statements about what longer have to feel embarrassed at having been kept at arm’s length might happen. This conservatism explains the hesitant nature of the from Baltic-area sources, and Baltic-area scholars no longer have “Convergences” speech. On the one hand, the old Cold War period any need to feel the need for “catching up” with an allegedly “more certainties were visibly eroding quickly, and, since “Baltic Studies” advanced” Western scholarship. 4 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 This personal convergence was facilitated by technological days that distance no longer exists, but at the same time the relative change and institutional support, though in 1990 I failed to rec- quantity of Western scholarship about the Baltic area continues to ognize the rapidly growing importance of the first of these. Easy shrink when compared to that which is being produced by scholars telephone communications, e-mail, the phenomenal expansion of in the three Baltic states or by Western scholars whose work has internet-based research, the proliferation of e-books and e-jour- become much more deeply embedded in the ongoing life of the nals, the growth of large readily available data bases of primary three Baltic republics. Whatever their personal histories, practitio- source documents and secondary literature – all these have enabled ners of Baltic Studies now work within the same large intellectual Balticist colleagues to feel that they inhabit a single internally con- frameworks, formulate their questions much in the same way, refer nected universe, virtual though it may be at times. In my own daily to the same secondary sources, and generally publish in the same work, I can communicate – in Latvian – with colleagues in Rīga journals and with the same publishing houses. Existing differences almost as easily and quickly as with those in the next office in my among scholars are nowadays more a matter of interpretative nu- university department. The institutional infrastructure – that is, ance and style and less a matter of broad ideology. One might say university-based programs – for all such transformations, however, that the field has become internationalized more than ever before, developed rather unevenly, creating far fewer permanent connec- with the nationality of the scholars writing about Baltic themes be- tions between North American and Baltic institutions than between ing nearly irrelevant. The concerns of the émigré generations of Baltic-area and other European institutions. Perhaps this was inevi- AABS are no longer dominant, or at least have been reformulated; table, given the relative cost of creating and maintaining such con- the Cold War frame of reference has disappeared; and the young- nections. Judging by the experience of my own university – Iowa est generation of Baltic scholars on the European continent are de- State – the early 1990s began with almost unchecked enthusiasm veloping a European identity, which by definition excludes North for contact-building: delegations traveled in both directions, signed America. Even so, the most recent publications in Baltic Studies, memoranda of understanding, and sought to create exchange pro- regardless of the origins of the authors, tend to share an interest grams that would place academics from one partner within an exist- in questions of personal and national identity, gender themes, en- ing program in another for a period of one or more years. The ex- vironmental concerns, and media history; and a great many write pectation was that both partners would be gainers in arrangements. more about representations of reality in the past and present than In North America, however, many of these exchange arrangements seek to establish what that reality really was or is. This is intellectu- eventually lapsed, their originators having retired or died, interest al convergence of a kind but it is different from what Baltic Studies having flagged, or money run out; another contributing factor in adherents might have expected twenty years ago. Balticists whose North America was the diminution among academic planners of the creativity proceeds from a conscious Baltic identity – as best ex- concept of area-studies itself. In Europe, however, the resources emplified in our field by the poetry of Ivar Ivask – nonetheless, are of international regional organizations and the European Commu- still few and far between. nity provided continuous investments, particularly after the three Baltic states became members of the EU in 2004. Also, countries such as Germany and Sweden, whose histories were directly linked Our Association to the Baltic region, continued to evidence considerable interest Gundar King, Dean Emeritus and provided healthy levels of support. One outcome of all these of the School of Business, Pacific institutional linkages was that the forms of academic institutions Lutheran University. AABS In- in the Baltic countries became more “Western”: degree programs terim President 1970 were renamed, course offerings were changed, programs altered When the First Conference on their content, and Baltic institutions became full-fledged members Baltic Studies took place in 1968, of vast number of continental networks. Nonetheless, regardless of it was more than a gathering of reform and partnership arrangements, most Baltic academic insti- Baltic scholars. The occasion tutions retained their own character. Institutional convergence was was used to assess the need to much less readily identifiable than was the physical convergence of establish an organization to ad- Balticists as individual scholars. vance the academic interests of Of the three kinds of convergences mentioned in my 1990 talk, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithu- intellectual convergences and their characteristics are the most dif- anians in the West. ficult to describe precisely. It is fairly clear, to my thinking, that At that time, the number of Baltic Studies remain a distinctive field: the interests of its prac- older and younger faculty mem- titioners form a coherent body of scholarship, made so by its geo- bers in American and Canadian graphic focus and the continuous presence of certain themes: the colleges and universities was Gundar King, recent PhD, 1960s problems of small-statehood, the effervescence of political nation- very high. They had acquired alism, the maintenance of national consciousness, the prospects English as a common language for private communications and for of linguistic and cultural annihilation, the preservation of national the exchange of their profesional views. More importantly, they sovereignty, unfavorable demographic patterns, relations between were ready to engage themselves, directly or indirectly, in the for- majorities and minorities, globalization, and economic develop- mal study of Baltic issues. ment. Many of these were prominent in Baltic-related scholarship A substantial number of the conference participants were best before the events of the past two decades; others have been more described as Baltic academics in exile. They were important in or- relevant by the historical changes of the recent past. The critical ganizing the conference; they supported the idea of academic home mass of insightful scholarship, however, did change its venue. Two of their own and other members of the exile communities. decades ago most politically unconstrained Baltic Studies scholar- The vision most acceptable to them was the formation of three ship was taking place in the West, even though it was weakened very autonomous groups united in a confederation. An opposing somewhat by its intellectual distance from the Baltic area; nowa- view was held by faculty members firmly established in their new AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 5 careers. They wanted an association that would facilitate confer- manly kindness of Jānis Gaigulis, the exemplary collegiality of ences and seminars on Baltic subjects, to publish their work, and Vytautas Vardys and Rimvydas Šilbajoris, the pragmatic courtesy help raise a new generation of Baltic scholars. of Gundar King, and the sometimes prickly but nevertheless in The concept of a professional AABS was strongly endorsed by retrospect good working relationship with Edgar Anderson. My scholars that became the first presidents of the new association. It main fight was to implement a two-year term for future presidents, also was adopted by most of the conferees. Patterns of American which he for some reason fiercely opposed, but which still came to professional societies were used. Fortunately for all, the late Dr. pass later. Jānis Gaigulis was persuaded to be the executive director of the Baltic scholarship should help unify rather than compartmental- AABS. Essentially, he was the father of the AABS. He nurtured ize the three nations. English has replaced Russian as their lingua a more inclusive idea of Baltic studies, welcomed new members, franca and joint window on the world. Much is being accomplished, helped organize the biennial conferences, raised money and en- more is in order! AABS will have its modest place in scholarly his- forced fiscal discipline. He even found ways to start a modest pub- tory for lighting this candle well before a new day dawned. lication that strengthened the progress of Baltic cooperation and unity. Over the years, our association has continued to link three gen- Some thoughts on Baltic Studies from an Estonian erations of Baltic scholars, and attracted a wider interest in their point of view work. The conferences, with participation largely financed with Ilse Lehiste, Professor Emeritus of university travel funds, brought us together and have added to the Linguistics, The Ohio State University. strength of our research and teaching. The Journal of Baltic Stud- AABS President 1974-1976 ies, now managed by Routledge, is an academic journal of inter- The geographical location of Estonia nationally recognized high quality. The scholarship program, es- places it between Finland and Latvia. His- tablished by our generous supporters, has financed the magisterial tory connects Estonia with its northern studies of outstanding young scholars. The AABS is now a profes- neighbor during some periods, and with sional organization that serves the international academic interests its southern neighbor during other periods. of the three Baltic nations. More importantly, it also is a base of Language connects Estonia with Finland; cooperation for the expanding community of international scholars Ilse Lehiste with respect to language, Estonia does not interested in the everchanging nature of the Baltic region. belong into the Baltic community, although contemporary non-Baltic consensus is that the Baltic countries all speak “Baltic.” From a linguistic point of view, there is really very little that could Present at the Creation be called Baltic studies in Estonia, with the exception of Livonian. Jaan Puhvel, Professor Livonian, however, is a Finno-Ugric language spoken on the ter- Emeritus Classics and Indo- ritory of contemporary Latvia. Lithuanian and Latvian would be European Studies, University touched upon within the general topic of Indo-European historical of California, Los Angeles. linguistics. AABS President, 1971-1972. As far as literature is concerned, Estonian writers in exile had My brief tenure as AABS opportunities for publication in several Estonian-language journals president in 1971-1972 fol- established by the exile communities in Sweden and Canada. The lowed quickly upon the heels Journal of Baltic Studies provided a chance to write about Estonian of the impressive activities of literature in English, with the hope of reaching a wider audience. the "founding fathers,” none of I published several articles in Journal of Baltic Studies that at- whom were Estonian. Some- tempted to do just that – for example, a critique of Heino Kiik’s one was needed to show the novel about collectivization in Estonia (“Where hobgoblins spend flag, and activists persuaded the night,” published in Estonia in 1970, Journal of Baltic Studies me to help fill the slot. It was Jaan Puhvel in the 1970s article in 1973), an analysis of Ilmar Laaban’s surrealist poetry an attractive new departure, promising academic probity rather published in exile in Sweden (Journal of Baltic Studies, 1978). But than political or ideological venality. Such prospects were amply I tried to introduce a Baltic component into my research; publica- vindicated, despite stolid (or sometimes rabid) incomprehension by tions in Journal of Baltic Studies included “The phonetic realiza- the radical right, and being labeled "stooges of the imperialists" by tion of the trochaeic meter in Latvian and Estonian” (1984, in col- the Soviet Latvian "academician" Steinbergs. Soon other Estonians laboration with Dzintra Bond), and “An acoustic analysis of the succeeded to the role, not only that amphibious prodigy Ivar Ivask metrical structure of orally produced Lithuanian poetry” (Journal but Ilse Lehiste, Rein Taagepera, and Toivo Raun. We did our best of Baltic Studies 1990). to stress the trans-Baltic (rather than parochial) scope of the enter- I have also been interested in the more general topic of cultur- prise. In my own instance, as a specialist in ancient Indo-European al contacts. As far as language is concerned, the area around the studies, I was able to meld my native immersion in Estonian culture Baltic Sea constitutes a region of linguistic convergence, usually with the comparative study of Baltic languages, linguistics, and an- referred to by the German term Sprachbund – an area where his- tiquities, thus scholarship far removed from the passions of the mo- torically unrelated languages introduce common innovations, re- ment. There must have been consternation in the hall when for my sulting in closer typological similarity. An example would be the presidential address in 1972 at the Hart House of the University of development of a phonological feature called stød in Danish, bro- Toronto I chose (rather than some programmatic utterance or Es- ken tone in Latvian – as well as in Livonian, making Livonian the tonian topic) an exposé of newer findings concerning Old Prussian only Finno-Ugric language that has developed contrastive tone. and Lithuanian pre-Christian religion. - Another such area of linguistic convergence is the Balkan penin- On the administrative side I recall mainly the great and gentle- sula – and it is amusing that the terms Baltic and Balkan frequently 6 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 are confused by speakers of English! That bodes well for the next twenty years and many more. A It is my hope that Journal of Baltic Studies will continue to new generation of scholars is now guiding the AABS. The first real provide an opportunity for scholars interested in Baltic studies to post-Soviet generation of scholars is coming into its own in the Bal- publish their research – and not only scholars from the three Bal- tic. They are less encumbered, more articulated and more attuned tic states, but members of the international scholarly community to Western scholarly traditions than their predecessors could be. whose interests include topics dealing with the Baltic area. My wish is to see the twain come together and forge a new contem- porary conception of Baltic Studies. I envision that it will be more open, more encompassing, and much more inventive than we could Ruminations on Baltic Studies at Twice Twenty imagine twice twenty years ago. So it should be. And so be it. Valters Nollendorfs, Emeritus Professor of German, Univer- sity Wisconsin. AABS President 1976-1978 Indeed, not forty, but twice twenty. That is about two genera- AABS, Past and Present tions, and it is good that the generational change has gradually William R. Schmalstieg, Professor Emeritus of Slavic and Bal- taken place. The next twenty years seem safe. Twice twenty years tic Linguistics, Pennsylvania State University. AABS President also divides the time before and after the academic Iron Curtain 1982-1984 between Baltic scholarship in the West and in the Baltic countries I believe that I was the first AABS officer without family ties to was scrapped for good. the Baltic region. Indeed The establishment and steadfast maintenance of the AABS as an I only became interested organization based on academic principles is perhaps one of the in Baltic studies during least recognized past achievements now assumed as self-under- my first year of gradu- stood. Yet its first twenty years were full of political pressures to ate studies at the Uni- change its strict academic course, to avoid or address politically versity of Pennsylvania touchy topics and thus cater either to the demands of exile political in 1950-51, where my groups on the one hand or communist-directed academic politics in first formal contact with the occupied Baltic countries on the other. any Baltic language was Despite the political pressures, despite the lack of access to the the Old Prussian course academic resources taught by Prof. Antanas Prof. William Schmalstieg in the countries Salys, and my first text- which AABS schol- book was Jan Endzelin’s Altpreussische Grammatik published in ars studied, despite Rīga in 1944. Under the tutelage of Prof. Salys, Prof. Alfred Senn, a tenuous academ- and the poet Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičus I became fascinated by the ic foothold in the (to me then) distant and exotic Baltic lands and cultures. At this countries in which time I also made life-long friends with fellow students Antanas Kli- they lived, in its mas and Kostas Ostrauskas, both displaced by World War II from first twenty years their native Lithuania and my informal teachers of Lithuanian. the AABS become In 1964 I accepted a position at Penn State where I introduced a solid scholarly an elementary course in Lithuanian on a regular basis, had occa- organization with a sion to teach a seminar in Old Prussian several times and was even viable financial ba- once able to entice my friend Dr. Kostas Ostrauskas to come once a sis. Exile communi- Valters Nollendorfs, Conference on Exile, Culture and week for a term from Philadelphia to give a seminar on Lithuanian ties helped to raise Identity, Riga Technical University literature. Slightly prior to the AABS First Conference on Baltic funds; AABS conferences and its Journal of Baltic Studies became Studies my colleague Prof. Thomas Magner and I organized a con- recognized scholarly outlets. The AABS became a respected mem- ference on Baltic linguistics which took place at Penn State Uni- ber of the Western academic community. versity on April 5-6, 1968. Later with the help of the Lithuanian Twenty years ago that was in place when the Baltic opened up. consul, Dr. Petras Anusas, I was able to organize a conference on No less than the Baltic exile communities, members of the AABS the First Lithuanian Book, Martynas Mažvydas’ Catechism which rushed in to help. A Baltic Office was established. Western col- took place on 22nd Sept., 1997. leagues came as guest professors and researchers. Academic re- In the same year, however, the Penn State Dept. of Slavic Languag- form plans were developed and propagated. The results twenty es was combined with the Department of German and had to give up years later only partly correspond to the heady expectations. The its graduate program. At the present time there are no longer any body academic in the Baltic had much catching up to do after more courses in any Baltic language or literature at Penn State. In like than fifty years of academic isolation and dependence. A lot of manner, as far as I know, the University of Pennsylvania no longer pride had to be swallowed. Not all advice was prudent, and not has courses on specifically Baltic topics. I had hoped that other aca- all was accepted. It was difficult to find an acceptable egalitarian demic institutions would take up the slack and compensate for this language of communication and scholarship. Academic traditions, loss, but I was disappointed to read in Draugas, the Chicago Lithu- approaches and styles differed. The idea of "Baltic" in Baltic Stud- anian newspaper (February 7th, 2009), that in spite of a grant from ies was less understood and urgent in the Baltic than it had been the Lithuanian Foundation, the University of Illinois at Chicago will abroad. As the Baltic opened up to Europe and the rest of the world, no longer be offering a graduate program in Lithuanian studies. new opportunities became available, and the notion of "Baltic" it- In these days of continuing budget crises the concerns about the self underwent an expansion. What had looked like an easy linkage future of Baltic studies in academic institutions seem to be justi- through common academic principles became a torturous process fied. On the other hand predictions about the future course of hu- of adaptation. Yet the process continues. man events can easily fail. For example, Prof. Andrejs Plakans has AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 7 pointed out that the notion of the eventual convergence of Com- Baltic studies as a legitimate field of their full-time research. How munist and non-Communist societies ‘has ceased to be very influ- was I to find a slot to fit in, with my kind of training and areas of ential and that historical events have once again confounded the specialization? prognosticators among us.’ The answer came by a series of lucky coincidences. Shortly after On a more optimistic note, however, one can see that much prog- getting my Ph.D. in psychology, I had returned to being active in ress has been made since the founding of the AABS, initially in a large Latvian exile society, being invited as a speaker to various events, degree as a result of the work of the first administrative executive both in the USA and in Canada. In particular, the activists with director, Dr. Jānis Gaigulis, with whom I frequently consulted during whom I had collaborated in organizing the First Latvian Youth my tenure in office. I remember him as an extremely efficient, hard- Festival in Toronto, in 1959, insisted that I should continue to be working, but also good-humored and friendly man. In the course involved in what was known as “Latvian youth education.” I was of its more than forty years of existence the AABS has become an strongly prodded “to continue doing my bit” for preserving a sense important international scholarly organization and as Prof. Gundar of Latvian identity among those just a few years younger than our J. King has noted, the Journal of Baltic Studies has now become ‘an own generation. Having heard of it as a hobby of mine, these activ- academic journal of internationally recognized high quality.’ ists simply decreed that I should start lecturing on folklore (“we need an attractive young professor as well as all the old fogies”). When I demurred that I knew too little about it, they answered: AABS recollections “All you need, is to be two steps ahead of your audience. Since they Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Uni- know nothing from nothing, that should not be too hard!” versity of Montréal. AABS President 1984-1986 It was true that I had embarked on a program of self-education In 1968, when I saw a notice for the First Baltic Studies Confer- in Latvian folklore, as a change from the rather dry stuff that was ence, to be held in Maryland, USA, my first thought was – what an my professional fare. I bought, borrowed and read everything that interesting event this promised to be, and my second – what a pity I could lay my hands on, but was severely hampered by not hav- that I cannot see any earthly reason for participating! ing access to a lot of sources that I would have needed. I tried to At the time, I was a young Assistant professor at the Depart- make do with what was available to me, as did all the other young ment of Psychology of the Université de Montréal, where I was activists in Latvian exile affairs. We thought doing something was to remain faithfully until my retirement thirty years later, in 1998. better than doing nothing at all. The older generation would occa- I had a research grant from what was then the National Research sionally make snide remarks (either in person or in the exile press) Council of Canada for experimental work on learning and memory. about how legendary Professor X or Y, back in the old country – The courses I taught were: learning theory, history of psychology, now there was somebody who really knew what they were talking psychopharmacology, and a laboratory on experimental methods. I about, hinting broadly that my generation did not. To my surprise, was directing several master’s and doctoral theses in experimental I found this rather stimulating. It became a challenge to try and psychology. From such a spring-board, there seemed not the re- match old X or Y in producing work of my own. motest possibility of joining an association of social scientists and By the time the AABS was founded, I had already embarked on scholars from the humanities working in Baltic studies, much as I a double life: one, as an ordinary Canadian citizen in my home and might be tempted to do. work environment, another as a patriotic Latvian, entrusted with car- When later I read accounts of that first AABS conference, I noted rying the torch of Latvian identity and the dream of a free and inde- the quality of the personalities who had participated, as well as the pendent Latvia. It was not an easy balancing act, and it could be done attractive mix of subject matter in the papers presented. Two years only on condition that the Latvian activities be attractive enough to later, the Second AABS Conference was to take place in San José, be worth the effort. For me in particular, it meant embarking on a California, a most attractive venue, organized by Professor Edgars broad field of study about all things Latvian and Baltic, which took up Andersons, whose tomes on a lot of time and effort. This, necessarily, in my spare time or on my Latvian history were well holidays, all on top of getting my career going in a very competitive known to me. On scanning environment, and having very young children at home. the list of proposed confer- Looking back, I can see numerous occasions when I might have ence topics, along with the disembarked from this tread-mill and returned to a quiet life as a names of section organizers “normal” citizen, working in a single field of endeavor. But - as the for the program, I was im- behaviorist psychologists would put it: actions that get positive rein- pressed to see that the ses- forcement increase in habit strength, while actions getting negative sion on folklore would be reinforcement weaken and may ultimately be extinguished. It so hap- chaired by Marija Gimbutas, pened that my public lectures in Latvian society were extremely well of whom I knew, of course, received by an enthusiastic public, who showered me with compli- because of her widely read ments, offered me flowers, and kept sending me ever more invitations. book, The Balts. All that re- Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my 1968 students in my francophone mained was for me to find a university, all fired up by the student uprisings in France, seemed sul- topic on which I might con- len and resentful about all the hard work I was expecting from them. ceivably produce a schol- The Université de Montréal student paper of that revolutionary year arly paper in Baltic studies, was full of Marxist slogans and fiery articles where professors were unlikely as the prospect presented as nasty, elitist oppressors of the working class. I person- seemed at first. Here were ally was ranked among those tyrants who actually expected students all those political scientists, to learn something before giving them a good mark in my courses Vaira Vike-Freiberga, cover of biography historians and linguists who (admittedly abstract stuff, rather than “touchy-feely”). by Ausma Cimdina, 2003 all could claim an interest in To make a long story short: I did find a topic, I did get to San José 8 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 and my paper was well-received. Plenty of positive reinforcement a hand in writing the history of a free and independent Latvia for a there. Marija Gimbutas, among others, loved my approach to the Lat- full two terms as President of the Republic. President Toomas Ilves vian dainas and encouraged me to continue. Valdis Zeps, the linguist, is another AABS veteran who still holds the same privileged posi- asked me to publish my paper in one of the first issues of theBulletin tion in Estonia. I think we are both grateful to the AABS for what it of Baltic Studies, which was meant to become the official scholarly contributed to our being ready to accept such responsibilities. Journal for the AABS. This was extremely important, not just for The new generations of scholars now face different conditions and me, but for attracting AABS members in general, for universities different challenges. I hope they will be just as stubborn and just as and granting agencies alike look to refereed publications as well as committed as we were in our youth in overcoming all the difficulties presented conference papers in their evaluations of professors. and rising to the opportunities that history will present them. Another bonus was that the AABS conferences were great fun, with a wonderful joie de vivre among the interdisciplinary and in- ternational participants. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the field of Baltic studies was the main field of operations for only some of the presenters in the conference. Many other scholars, just like myself, had had to go through intellectual contortions in or- der to fit into the program and be able to participate. They might be full-time professors of English, or German or Slavic languages or literatures, but they used their training and breadth of experi- ence as an asset to the study of Baltic topics. As Vilis Samsons, the long-time Secretary-General of the Soviet Latvian Academy of Sciences, had disparagingly remarked: Baltic Studies in the West was carried out largely by amateurs, while the academicians in the home countries were at it full time. That position too was a chal- lenge: we in the West had to show what could be achieved under far from ideal conditions, but with complete academic freedom. I think we rose to the challenge and really put Baltic Studies on the Tallinn, 2002: Three Presidents meet for lunch: Lennart Meri, Bill Clinton, international map. Rein Taagepera. Photo by Mare Taagepera. Undoubtedly, there was also a political undertone to supporting the AABS, even if the association kept itself totally free from any kind of political interference or pressure, from whatever source. Thoughts on Baltic Studies since the fall of the The biannual conferences and the Journal of Baltic Studies were Iron Curtain serious academic platforms from which to remind the world of the Rein Taagepera, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Uni- existence of the Baltic States, of the injustice of their condition un- versity Tartu, and Research Professor of Political Science, Uni- der Soviet occupation, and of their right to the freedom ardently versity of California, Irvine. AABS President 1986-1988 hoped for by their peoples. The Journal of Baltic Studies, as well as The fall of the Iron Curtain and restoration of Baltic independence books by AABS authors, found their place on public and university meant that I largely library shelves where only USSR propaganda and a few pre-WWII shifted away from Bal- publications had been available before. I think it was an important tic studies, which in my achievement and a very necessary one. case straddled politi- The seventies were a time of great growth and popularity for Bal- cal science and history. tic Studies, with hundreds of local Latvians, Estonians and Lithu- Many local people are anians joining the regulars at any AABS conference held in their now able to study the town. By the time I joined the governance of the Association and Baltic scene, and I am became its President in the mid-eighties, we had reached a time of free to do other things. professional consolidation and of creating the Baltic Studies Fund Instead of looking as an insurance for continuation into the future. I saw then how at the Baltic countries much the AABS owed to the unique vision and unflagging efforts from the outside, I now of one single man – the late Jānis Gaigulis, the long-term Director live here for six months of the Association. One problem we could not solve – and we see per year and teach logi- the results of it today – was the difficulty in establishing a changing cal models in social sci- of the guard and of the generations in Western universities. After ences rather than Baltic Professor Andersons’ tragic death, only a few places like Stock- history. Description and holm or Indiana remained with departments where a student might analysis of Baltic cur- get a doctorate in a field that was a direct part of Baltic Studies. rent events, which I la- I among others could never have students in the interdisciplin- boriously used to piece ary field that I developed for my own research, for they had to be together from indirect trained along the lines laid down and accepted in the disciplinary sources, is now done study programs of my department and university. I am proud of all better even by some the graduate students I have guided over the years, but they are all daily newspapers. And psychologists, not Baltic scholars. instead of describing Tartu, 1992: Rein Taagepera with his presiden- Then came 1991, and the rest is history. In my case, history brought the political scene, I tial campaign poster, in morning attire. the immense privilege of returning to my native country and having (Continued on p. 12) Photo by T. Palm. AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 9 Historical 1990 Presidential Address by Andrejs Plakans (continued from p. 1)

I would like to borrow it for a while as commonplace in ways that would have ganizational framework such as AABS and the main theme of my ruminations this af- been inconceivable a few short years ago. more than the good will exhibited in our ternoon. In the domain of academic organization, as willingness to entertain each other's point To most of us in this room it has been par- we heard in our pre-conference workshop of view. What is required ultimately for in- ticularly hard to view the recent changes in from representatives of Baltic institutions tellectual convergence is a deep apprecia- Eastern Europe, particularly in the Baltic of higher learning, much thought is being tion of each other's thought processes and area, with dispassion. Our personal histories given to reorganization, and some of the then a decision to minimize the importance or those of close friends and colleagues are new models being contemplated are those of those aspects of them that can never be too directly involved in these changes for with which North American academics are merged. The first step is an inventory and I us to view them in a laboratory context, as indeed very familiar. shall try to develop one by means of look- it were, in which all of the various possible The physical and institutional convergen- ing carefully at the experiences of my own outcomes would be equally acceptable. Yet ces of which I speak have been made pos- discipline – history – and one of my spe- we must also recognize that these changes sible to a great extent by the availability of cialties within history — the history of the have been the result of the interplay of forc- modern transportation and communications Latvian people —to see how the process of es that we did not create and that the out- media, both of which render the implemen- intellectual convergence can work out there comes are not necessarily amenable to any tation of decided-upon steps relatively easy. and what some of the difficulties might be. kind of shaping. They may, in other words, The decision to visit, the decision to borrow Let me begin this exploration by look- have their own internal dynamic. It is also institutional models — both of these, once ing at the domain of historical investiga- true that one attribute of that dynamic could made, can be implemented on the practical tion where convergence would seem to be be a convergence of sorts, or convergences, level without much further ado. But there the easiest, namely, in the realm of research in the plural, across a wide variety of ac- is a third kind of convergence that needs to topics. The question is whether historians tivities. There is a considerable amount of be discussed and on which I would like to working in Latvia and those working else- empirical evidence before us that conver- spend the remainder of my time, and that where are likely to develop some degree gences of various kinds are already taking is intellectual convergence. This type of of unanimity on what the important unex- place at the level at which their discussion convergence is the most problematic of all plored subjects of Latvian history might be. is relevant to the participants of AABS. because it has to do not with the proximity This question seems simple, but an answer We have, to begin with, a physical conver- of bodies but of minds. The fact that we can to it is difficult, if we remember that the gence of people interested in Baltic affairs. sit in the same rooms around one table for choice of research topic may be conditioned Witness the fact that at the present AABS any length of time and converse at length by different factors among the two groups. convention there are present many more about a wide variety of subjects, perhaps On the one side, in the Latvian republic, scholars from the Baltic republics than has even in a common language, is in itself no there has developed in the recent half year ever before been the case, as well as the fact guarantee whatsoever that we have had a or so an intense interest — one might say a that immediately after the AABS meeting a meeting of minds. And this fact can hardly justifiable interest — in a range of subjects large portion of the people present here will be otherwise. Intellectual convergence — or which heretofore were for one reason or be flying to Rīga to attend the 1990 song the meeting of minds — is a rare thing even another closed to research. Many of these festival in Latvia. And these groups are among members of the same culture when have to do with the history of Latvians in only small examples of the larger process of they have complete freedom to speak their the twentieth century and for the most part physical convergence that has been enlarg- piece. Why should we ex- ing over the past few years the numbers of pect, therefore, that it would Balts visiting the republics themselves and be any easier to achieve the numbers of visitiors from the republics among people who have to the west. In this process of physical con- grown up in very different vergence, stereotypes have been shattered, cultures, different political misunderstandings have been reduced, and systems, and have received a greater realism has entered these admit- very different academic tedly difficult long-distance relationships. training. Cross-cultural un- A second type of convergence which derstanding has never been is also fairly easy to document is institu- easy – anthropologists have tional convergence, and it can be seen as a an entire discipline designed byproduct of the first physical types. We to achieve it. have, for example, the institutional ties that By posing the question have been created by American-Lithuanian about intellectual conver- scholars participating in the direction of the gence in this manner I am AABS delegation, June 1991, at a seminar in Jūrmala, Latvia: Jānis newly founded Vytautas Magnus Univer- not seeking to be unduly Gaigulis, Valters Nollendorfs, Andrejs Plakans sity in Kaunas, by the increasing number of pessismistic nor to be unap- exchange programs that are linking institu- preciative of the vast difficulties that have with the political history of the Latvian tions of higher learning in North America had to be overcome in achieving the other people. Current circumstances themselves and the Baltic, and the complex linkages kinds of convergences. Nor am I saying have dictated this emphasis, but it has to be that are developing between various kinds that we try to think in the same manner. But noted that for historians in the West who of scholarly, professional, and business what I do wish to underline is that we, as may also be interested in Latvian history organizations of the two areas. Some of scholars and researchers, hoping to move no similar incentive is present. They, on these institutional convergences will not, of approximately in the current direction in their side, may be taking their cues not so course, result in very much in the long run the future, should not confuse physical and much from the burning issues of the day for lack of resources or energy to sustain institutional convergence with mutual un- as from the intellectual problems defined them. Yet some of them will last to become derstanding. Required is more than an or- as important by the organized disciplines 10 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 which they inhabit. These may have little to unique history among the peoples living in the same kind of impasse has been reached do with twentieth century political history the Baltic area. Yet the most recent gen- with respect to basic concepts in the West- and may be scattered across the centuries eration of Latvian historians who received ern historical professions, and the degree to that are normally studied by their special- their professional training in the West are which historians do not share fundamental ties. And that motivation too is perfectly more likely to see the history of Latvians assumptions can be seen by looking at the understandable. comparatively and to be more comfortable book review pages of such publications as We come therefore to what seems to be a in viewing them in the comparative context the American Historical Review. None- kind of an impasse, which may diminish the of the Baltic area as a whole. The unit of theless, we are discussing here intellectual chances of convergence on this point. On analysis for them, in other words is not so convergence between two relatively small the one hand, there is a perfectly reason- much the Latvian people themselves — a groupings of historians and therefore their able emphasis on historical events that are unique population undergoing unique his- failure to come to an understanding in this directly relevant to current political ques- torical experiences — but rather the Latvi- domain may have even more serious conse- tions; on the other hand, there is an equally ans as a component part of a regional popu- quences for the future. reasonable emphasis on those questions, lation, with an historical experience whose An even more difficult problem for in- sometime wholly irrelevant to the present, dimension can best be understood when tellectual convergence is raised within the that are defined primarily by the interests seen to be similar with and comparable to realm of philosophy of history by the radi- of the organized discipline which provides those of other peoples. cally different basic understandings of the the immediate intellectual setting in which These differences in the way basic his- past the two groups of Latvian historians historical work is carried out. Can conver- torical conceptualization takes place are of have become used to. I do not think that gence on important historical topics, take course not the result of perversity or stub- it would unfair to characterize the general place when working historians define them bornness, but rather of intellectual training atmosphere that prevails among historians from such radically different intellectual and conditioning, and they are very real with in the Latvian republic as one in which the settings? The problem is a very real one for respect to the process of intellectual con- past is seen to be patterned and meaning- future interactions among historians of the vergence. There will be severe problems of ful. Several generations of research within Latvian people but the outcome is at this communication — of historians talking past a philosophical tradition which emphasized point unpredictable. each other — if some degree of unanim- that the past had meaning and that the tra- We proceed to the next step, or next level, ity on these questions is not reached. One jectory of the past could be known will have which for historians is the domain of con- might note here, of course, that precisely left a permanent residue even when the less cepts with which the past is organized. I re- fer here primarily to the difficult questions Dancing Shoes and Common Approaches of periodization and units, of analysis, that By Aldis Purs is, the questions of how the seamless web of AABS members planning on attending the 22nd AABS Conference in Seattle* from the past should be broken up for purposes April 22-24, 2010 need to dust off their dancing shoes and prepare themselves for a of mutual understanding into chronological joint banquet with the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study (SASS). periods and into the geographical entities I witnessed a SASS banquet in Madison, Wisconsin this past May and saw firsthand that should be focused on. These problems the collected leading lights of Scandinavian studies anxiously await the rock cover have been part of Latvian historiography band as they tuned their instruments. Hardly a chord had been struck before a crazed for a long time, and debates about them mob of academics rushed the dance floor and proved that ABBA was indeed from a certainly precede the present. But they are Scandinavian country. also very much part of the question of con- Apparently, however, AABS banquets were similar "back in the day." If so, it would vergence, because in a very real sense mu- not be the only similarity between SASS and AABS. At the same Madison confer- tual agreement about them must precede ence, I repeatedly noticed a family resemblance between AABS and SASS confer- agreement on the answers that historical ences. The methodological approaches and driving points of inquiry in papers, panels, sources provide. In recent times, historians and round tables was familiar. With few exceptions, I could easily imagine a paper on in the Latvian republic have begun to ques- an aspect of Estonian history, Lithuanian political science, or Latvian folklore as an in- tion the periodization scheme that has been tegral part of the panels assembled. Likewise, the collegial atmosphere of a gathering part of Marxist-Leninist historiography for of specialists reminded me of AABS. Scandinavian specialists eagerly reveled in the a long time — the scheme which sees the chance to talk about their specialization with like-minded and equally informed col- past in terms of a feudal period followed by leagues. Many described their relative isolation at their home institutions and looked a period of victory of the bourgeoisie fol- forward to SASS particularly for the ability to talk about Scandinavia with other spe- lowed in turn by the victory of the prole- cialists. No doubt, this description rings equally true to many Baltic specialists and tarian state. Transferred into the realm of their relationship with AABS. This common experience and relationship between real chronology, this scheme tended to cut specialist and learned society will contribute to a successful joint conference of SASS across Western categories of periodization, and AABS, not least because we also know each other. Scandinavian specialists have which by and large has used historical time a strong, basic background on the Baltic States (often personal travel experiences as — centuries — or cultural events — such as well), just as we know about Scandinavia. In other words, we will converse with each the Renaissance or the Enlightenment — as other without beginning at the beginning (no clarifications that Baltic and Balkan are markers. different will be needed). With respect to units of analysis, there has For AABS members, the conference in Seattle promises to be a welcome reunion perhaps been greater convergence among of old friends and colleagues and simultaneously an introduction to kindred neigh- Latvian historians than one might have ex- bors. Just don't forget the dance shoes. You may also want to practice "Happy Birth- pected, because the historians of the inde- day" as SASS will celebrate its 100th Conference, a truly remarkable, formidable, and pendence period and many of those living praise-worthy accomplishment. Maybe in 2168, SASS will return similar greetings in the west subsequently, as those working to AABS. within the Marxist-Leninist frame of ref- erence, wrote primarily about Latvians as * Visit http://depts.washington.edu/sass2010/ regularly for updates having had a separate and to a great degree AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 11 significant aspects of this philosophical tra- ganization of historical disciplines. Let me dition are finally laid to rest. The habit of highlight this aspect of things by juxtapos- thinking about the past in terms of histori- ing the two different intellectual contexts cal laws of development and of the histori- within which historians in the Latvian re- an's obligation to uncover those laws is not public and historians in North America are likely to disappear quickly and, of course, likely to be working. I mentioned some of there is no reason why it has to disappear these differences in a conference in Rīga at all. But contrast this with the habits of in March in which the memory and work mind of Western historians among whom of Edgar Anderson was celebrated, and belief in "historical laws" in the same sense pointed to the fact that the differences in has disappeared almost entirely. The rea- question are likely to carry historians in- sons for this disappearance are complicated terested in Latvian history in two different and they have to do with the general erosion directions. I mean by this that in Latvia, of the belief in absolutes of any kind, and historians have a ready, dedicated, and AABS delegation to the Baltic, 1991: V. Stanley the replacement of them by a high degree of broad audience for the intellectual products Vardys celebrating the impending convergence of relativism in making statements about the of their work, whereas in the West histori- Baltic Studies scholars past. If historians in the Latvian republic ans working on Latvian themes are likely to and I certainly do not view the future with continue to talk in terms of an "historical be writing, when they write in English, for despair. Perhaps in those fields of Baltic science," meaning by that term an orga- other specialists. In the one case, historians studies whose subject matter transcends the nized undertaking which is in some ways are contributing to the self-understanding burning questions of the day intellectual analogous to the natural sciences, histori- of an entire nation; on the other, they are convergence will prove easier to achieve, ans of the West tend to emphasize relativ- contributing to the specialized information as indeed in some fields is already the case. ism and generally exclude the humanistic about another part of the world and there- What I have sought to suggest here is that disciplines from those which can pretend fore their ways of shaping their research the kind of commonality it would be desir- to the discovery of any kind of permanent will naturally be guided by the interests of able to have, and which would without any regularities in human affairs. their fellow specialists. There is likely to doubt enormously benefit the further study As far as intellectual convergence is be an emphasis on the comparative dimen- of the Baltic, will require more than good concerned, therefore, in the realm of phi- sions of the subject, as I mentioned earlier, will and more than the physical and institu- losophy of history a meeting of minds is and a tendency to portray Latvian history tional convergences our common enterprise likely to be the most difficult of all. On not in and for itself but as part of the larger has exhibited so far. It will require a great the one hand, there are historians who ex- story of the larger political units of which deal of patience on both sides, as we seek pect a great deal of certainty to flow from Latvians for most of their history have been to identify the sources of each other's point historical evidence; on the other, there are a part. By being professionally socialized of view and try to understand why choice historians for whom the permanence of any within a very different professional mi- of subject matter, organizing concepts, and historical statement is very questionable lieu, Western historians with an interest in indeed the very philosophies in which our indeed and who will see in the historian's Latvia are not likely to have as fervent a intellectual statements are embedded are work less the uncovering of historical laws commitment to Latvian history per se and likely to be very different. I, for one, do not and more the continuous, unending testing may seem to their counterparts in Latvia expect that this enterprise will fail, but I do of hypotheses, with each tested hypothesis to be partaking somewhat of dilettantism. expect that it will take many more meetings giving rise to new ones. These differences Whether one designates these differences such as the present one for true intellectual of approach may turn out to be too great as arising from the different organization of convergence to finally bear its fruit. When to bridge, in which case intellectual con- the historical disciplines, or from different that moment arrives, we shall finally be able vergence will have to operate at the lower styles of doing history, the result in either to deal with each other not only as personal levels already described. case will be different degrees of attachment acquaintances but as colleagues engaged in Finally, I would like to mention one more to the subject matter at hand and different a common academic enterprise, namely the area where convergence might be expect- modes of presentation of findings. continuing search for the special contribu- ed to take place and where there are great Whether what I have observed in my own tions that our connection to the Baltic area difficulties to overcome, and this is in the field will hold true for other disciplines as allows us to make to the general body of realm of expectations produced by the or- well is something that remains to be seen knowledge about human affairs.

Thoughts on Baltic Studies since the fall of tic languages. The tendency remains, as Andrejs Plakans noted 20 the Iron CURTAIN (continued from p. 9) years ago, to consider painstaking fixation on a narrow topic schol- have sometimes participated. arly, while generalizations "may seem ... to be partaking somewhat I still read the Journal of Baltic Studies with great interest and of dilettantism.” Generalizations are felt to be unscholarly because sometimes am drawn into publishing in it. Mostly this involves they inevitably draw one outside one's range of deepest expertise. The comparisons of the Baltic countries with each other and the outside reverse is true. world. This is what Baltic studies are about, as distinct from Lithu- If a scholar insists that "a cobbler should stick to his last," my anian, Latvian or Estonian studies. The latter have value, but they response is that he who narrowly sticks to his last is a cobbler. become building blocks for Baltic studies only when someone uses Making our specific findings meaningful requires that we try to them for something broader. connect them to the broader vistas about which we know less. So Some Baltic scholars justify their concentrating on a single coun- we are liable to make mistakes. If so, others will correct us. Re- try by an inability to gather materials outside their language area maining too narrowly in our area of highest expertise guarantees us – until some brash American graduate student pieces something in- against mistakes – and against relevance. So I am waiting for more teresting together without knowing any of the geographically Bal- Baltic studies in the Journal of Baltic Studies.

12 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 In the Times of Great Change in my book Texts about Texts (1985). One article (“Vjačeslav Ivanov Tomas A. Venclova, Professor of – Translator of Kristijonas Donelaitis”) came out in the Journal of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Baltic Studies. I became friends not only with Gimbutas, Šilbajoris Yale University. AABS President and Greimas but also with numerous other Lithuanian scholars in 1990-1992 the West, and besides them – with Valdis Zeps, Juris Dreifelds, Ivar Most AABS members relate to the Ivask, Mardi Valgemäe. In 1984-89, a group of Baltic scholars I was emigration of the WWII era: them- part of issued the journal Baltic Forum, which was published in Lith- selves or their parents, they had fled uanian, Latvian, Estonian and English (we also thought about Span- their countries in 1944-45, running ish and even Russian editions which nevertheless did not material- away from the Soviet occupation and ize). The journal, even if somewhat forgotten nowadays, had played Stalin’s terror. I am a rare exception a certain role in making the Western reader familiar with the state of Tomas Venclova since I grew up in Lithuania, in the affairs in the Baltic States during the crucial moment of their history. Soviet environment, and left my country only in 1977. Perhaps, The postulated Baltic unity at that time was as obvious as during the my case was a herald of the new era, when immediate contact was years of my youth in Lithuania. established between the Baltic intellectuals living in the West and The status of the founding fathers and the most active group of those who remained home. Even before I left Lithuania, I thought AABS has belonged to the Latvians. First of all, I would like to – and still think – of myself as a poet, essayist and translator rather mention the memorable name of Jānis Gaigulis, whom we all owe than a scholar; although since the second half of the sixties, it so much and whose colleague I used to be, which I consider a real gift happened that I have from time to time published philological ar- of fate. However, elections of the president have been traditionally ticles. I was interested in structuralism and semiotics, often visited carried out by rotation – a Lithuanian, a Latvian, or an Estonian Tartu, where Yuri Lotman was building up the famous semiotic president would be elected turn by turn. In the years 1990-1992, school, and, in a sense, I became his disciple. I considered Lotman- it was my honor to play this role. Alas, I am a very poor admin- ism to be especially engaging because it gave one a chance to move istrator (though with such people around me as Gaigulis, Valters away from the official and generally fruitless Soviet scholarship. It Nollendorfs, Gundar King and others this was not so hopeless). was not far, incidentally, from Lotmanism to overt political protest. And yet, I was lucky, because these were the years of the final lib- Eventually, I was driven out of my country to the West and stripped eration of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. I flatter myself with the of Soviet citizenship for being a member of the dissident move- thought that at that time the choice of a recent immigrant from ment. It was a rather mild measure, which the Soviet authorities the occupied Baltic country and a member of the dissident move- back then resorted to, even if infrequently: more often than not, ment as AABS president has acquired a certain symbolic value. We dissidents would end up in prisons. followed the events in our native lands with hope but, naturally, My generation in Lithuania felt that the Baltic States, with their not without apprehension. Fortunately, the Soviet system turned shared problems and unenviable fate, were, so to speak, a single out to be weaker than most of us had assumed. In the second half whole. We were interested in what was going on in Latvia and of June, 1991, a group of AABS leaders, including myself, visited Estonia and often visited those countries, where we had lots of Rīga, Tartu, Tallinn and Vilnius, establishing direct contacts with friends; Latvians and Estonians, in their turn, visited us and shared the Baltic universities and academies. It was also at that time that the events of our life. The cultures of all the three states evolved in the Baltic Academic Center in Rīga, branch office of AABS, was a somewhat parallel direction and represented a kind of a “Western founded. We experienced virtually no problems in communicating enclave” within the Soviet empire. We were familiar with the daily with the local colleagues, though they did not quite believe yet that life, art and scholarship of our Baltic neighbors, and of course the the long-awaited freedom had come. This was already my third freethinking activists in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, regardless visit to Lithuania: in the spring of 1990, I was not yet issued a visa of whether they were officially recognized or underground figures, on the grounds of being a dissident, but in the fall I already man- acted as one or at least took each other’s experience into account. aged to visit my motherland from the side of Poland; in May 1991, We all knew that there were active Baltic diasporas in the West, and there was again a complication with obtaining the visa, but it was we shared as much information about them as we could, depending nevertheless settled, and there was no longer a problem crossing on how much of it managed to get through the bars of censorship. the Lithuanian border for the third time in June. Freedom was vis- The existence of AABS and the Journal of Baltic Studies was not a ibly gaining ground. In Tartu, I was lucky to meet again with Yuri secret to me even at home. For a Lithuanian, such names as Marija Lotman, who only had two more years to live. He, as we all did, Gimbutas, Rimvydas Šilbajoris and Algirdas Julius Greimas (with passionately awaited complete independence of the three Baltic whom Lotman collaborated) were legendary; names of the Latvian countries. The independence came soon, along with the collapse of and Estonian émigré scholars were not something alien either. the Soviet Union. It so happened that at that moment I delegated When I came to the West, I became more involved with scholar- my presidentship to Toivo Raun, the newly elected Estonian. ship (here my Tartu experience turned out to be very useful). My Remembering these turbulent years now, I am thinking of how direct interests lie in the field of Slavic studies, more precisely – Rus- AABS could contribute, and what it actually contributed, to the sian and Polish poetics. But I also taught Lithuanian (I am proud that preservation and the development of the Baltic culture and scholar- some of my students later published their work on Baltic studies) and ship. We are not a political organization, but the right of the Baltic even all three Baltic literatures as part of the survey course “Non- States to be free and to reunite with the family of other European Russian Literatures of the USSR,” which I read at Yale and Columbia countries has always been of paramount importance to each one universities. I have published several articles on the topics related to of us. Our nations have reached this goal. Generally speaking, the Baltic region – on the Russian-Lithuanian poet Jurgis Baltrušaitis AABS managed to ensure that the Baltic region during the Soviet (whom I studied with Lotman earlier, back in Tartu), on the history era would not be disregarded by the world community of scholars, of the Vilnius University, on the theater of absurd in Lithuania, as and that those aspects of its life which were hard or impossible well as many essays about Lithuanian writers, which were included to study at home were still studied. We have been trying to find AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 13 common language with the scholars from our native countries, to scholarship on the eastern Baltic world and will remain a monument to give them the opportunity to publish in the West, to provide them the far-reaching and bold vision of the organization’s founders. with institutional connections and guarantee an exchange of people It is also important to recall the AABS’s pioneering role in stimu- engaged in the same field, to help reshape academic life in Lithu- lating Baltic Studies on a world scale. I don’t think it was a coin- ania, Latvia and Estonia according to world models and standards. cidence that the Baltic Studies conferences in Scandinavia began This activity has had its ups and downs, but it has been and will be in the early 1970s or that much deeper cooperation between North carried out in the future. One wishes to think that Baltic scholars American Baltic specialists and those based in Europe really took in the West will continue to influence their countries on their way off in that same decade. Although they were initially small in num- to greater openness and tolerance, in their struggle against xeno- bers, it is striking that the first Soviet Baltic scholars at AABS con- phobia and stereotypes. This task remains vital, and in some cases ferences appeared as early as 1982. – rather difficult. The very idea of the Baltic solidarity, which has In many ways the years 1989-1991 were a turning point for the always inspired AABS and seemed self-evident during the years of AABS. In North America we had come of age and were accept- my youth, causes the most problems. Each of the three countries is ed as a bonafide scholarly organization. At the same time, as the now inclined towards self-insulation, which leads inevitably to pro- Baltic states were regaining their independence, a true opening to vincialism – at times, nearly as grave as during the Soviet era. Here our colleagues there finally became possible. One of my most vivid we could, and should, help. Finally, an essential goal is to study memories of those years is an official trip by the AABS leadership, the Baltic nations in their relation to the geographical, historical co-sponsored by IREX, to the Baltic region (still officially under and ethnic surroundings, whether German, Scandinavian, Polish, Soviet rule) in June 1991. There were virtually no restrictions on Russian, Jewish or any other. Incidentally, my own interests have our activity, and we had very cordial meetings with leaders of Baltic recently become focused precisely on this issue: I am working on universities and academies. It was an emotional experience for all of the cultural history of Vilnius, and in part on that of Klaipėda and us. On one particularly memorable day, traveling by bus, we literally Königsberg-Kaliningrad – all cities where the narratives and dis- had breakfast in Tallinn, lunch in Rīga, and dinner in Vilnius, and the courses of several cultures and nations intersect. evening was topped off by several hours of wandering the streets of the Lithuanian capital with Rimvydas Šilbajoris as a wonderful guide. On the other hand the academic payoff, or the possibility The AABS in Its Fifth Decade of “intellectual convergence” that Andrejs Plakans alludes to, from Toivo U. Raun, Professor of History, Indiana University. AABS these and ensuing contacts never fully transpired. To this day Baltic President 1992-1994 Studies in the Baltic states remain relatively stunted. The rewards At the beginning of its fifth decade, the AABS can rightly be proud for Baltic scholars are still mainly for work in Estonian, Latvian, and of its accomplishments. The organization was launched (not surpris- Lithuanian (not Baltic) Studies, and the comparative dimension, so ingly on Latvian initiative, because this community had the largest pervasive in West scholarship, continues to be downplayed. There critical mass among postwar Baltic immigrants to North America) in are, however, some signs of change, especially as younger Baltic the heyday of the founding of area studies organizations in the US in scholars receive training abroad and then return home. the 1960s, e.g., Latin American Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and A final aspect of the turning point I see at the start of the 1990s Jewish Studies. In its early years Baltic Studies in North America was the mushrooming of interest in Baltic affairs, to a large extent clearly benefitted from this increased recognition of ethnic and cultural the result of the collapse of the USSR and the restoration of Bal- diversity. Following roughly a human generation of proving itself, the tic independence. One of the most significant results here was the AABS was accepted into the prestigious American Council of Learned expansion of the range of scholars doing Baltic Studies in North Societies in 1991. In my view the AABS’s most lasting achievement America, including a considerable number of individuals with a is the establishment and almost continually improved existence of the non-Baltic background. Maintaining and indeed further expand- Journal of Baltic Studies, now in its fortieth year, counting the preced- ing this base of interest will be a crucial factor in the well-being of ing Bulletin of Baltic Studies. The journal has refreshingly evolved Baltic Studies in the coming years. toward a substantially broader scope in subject matter as well as in the range of authors and disciplines represented, not to speak of a more professional appearance. It is the premier outlet for English-language What AABS Has Meant to Me Violeta Kelertas, Associate Professor, Chair of Lithuanian Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago. AABS President 1996- 1998 As a young graduate student in Comparative Literature in the early 1970s, I was more than happy to have been able to do Lithu- anian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and continue to use Lithuanian literature as one of my minors at the University of Wis- consin-Madison. Fortunately, my professors were delighted to have an exotic language in the departmental mix. While there I became aware of AABS and joined the Association, and have been a mem- ber ever since, and have missed maybe one or two conferences. It was the early AABS conferences back when they were small and one could go to almost all the lectures (history, linguistics, politics) that helped broaden my Baltic outlook and give me more perspective on the region. The literature sections were the most AABS delegation to the Baltic, 1991: Toivo Raun at Āraiši Village Museum, Latvia exciting for me; there are so many big names that I was fortunate to get to hear and know. The center of the Baltic literary circle was 14 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 the inspiring polyglot Ivar Ivask. As editor of Books Abroad, later A light-hearted look at the Transition. known as World Literature Today, Ivask knew the literary world Thomas Palm, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Portland as no one else, being personally acquainted with Nobel prize win- State University. AABS President 1998-2000 ners and other literati. But Ivar didn’t just rest on his laurels, he was The replacement of central dictate with markets and dictatorship endlessly promoting Baltic writers, organizing literary evenings at with democracy has led to rapid economic growth and a general AABS (please revive this old tradition!), asking for reviews on, in improvement of living standards in the Baltics. my case, Lithuanian books for his journal, and setting a wonder- Market-clearing prices were well established by the autumn of ful example of what can be achieved globally to put Baltic litera- l993, and the stores were well stocked. Baltic shopping centers to- ture on the world map. Another personal inspiration was Rimvydas day are as “classy” as others in the world. Šilbajoris, who wrote mostly on Lithuanian literature, though he However, as is evident in the current recession, the transition has was a Slavicist. Valters Nollendorfs did the same for Latvian lit- also subjected the region to the business cycle. Indeed, economics erature, though he was in Germanics. These were heady examples as a profession has earned the pejorative: “The dismal science.” It for us graduate students to follow and to know that we could have has not, however, been without its humorous side. careers and do Baltic Studies at the same time. Soviet restaurants, when they were open at all, were known for We would see writers and critics at the conferences and follow their slovenly appearance, bad food, and sullen service. As often their work in the Journal and other venues. Thus I was priviliged as not, they were closed! Why? Because, in the absence of rational to meet Gunars Saliņš, Astrīde Ivaska, Juris Silenieks, Valdis Zeps, prices, the allotted food had been sold off through the “back door” Mardi Valgemäe, Maire Jaanus, Karl Jirgens, Karlis Racevskis and –to generate private income. The scribbled cardboard sign in the many others, just to mention the literary types, some of whom no window of the empty restaurant would say: “No vacant tables.” longer appear at the conferences, but whose work and example Or, “accident, inventory, worker missing.” have left an indelible imprint on my mind and work. I know I am not My particular favorite was: “Closed for lunch.” alone in venerating them, as younger people than myself appeared Very early after the transition, I was astounded by a waitress in and keep appearing on the scene to take our place and feel the same the Volga restaurant in Tartu, who, having fed us a good, fairly- sense of coming home, the same sense of belonging somewhere priced meal, said “Thank you for your visit, come again!” She was with our intellectual interests and passions understood and wel- smiling –all this had been unheard of! comed, regardless of generation or outlook. Because we all want to There is now a large variety of good restaurants in Tallinn, and do Baltic studies and the American academic world only rarely has other bigger Baltic towns, with sophisticated international cuisine an umbrella for us to fit under. Small states, small literatures, small competing for business. Not to be outdone, the restaurant, “Eesti relevance is the attitude. Especially now when our countries have Maja” (The Estonian House), in the heart of Tallinn, specializes in joined the European Union and are seen correctly as a vital part of Estonian food– marinated eel, blood sausage, jellied pork, Baltic Europe, it has become increasingly difficult for North American sprats, tongue in horseradish sauce, etc.. It is owned and operated scholars to fit into any other structure than AABS. Thus I foresee by a repatriated Estonian émigré, an increasing role for AABS to fill. The Association is more neces- The first evening on a bike-and-barge trip in France, I was chat- sary and needed than ever. The international vibe it provides draws ting with a young anthro- scholars from all over the world pology professor. He told and rightly so. me about his interesting This brings me to a sore spot experiences as a visiting that AABS has not been able professor in an “exotic to do so well on; namely, in at- country in northeastern tracting scholars from the Baltic Europe.” It turned out region. Though attempts and ini- that he had been at Tartu tiatives were made in the early University in the Social Rimvydas Šilbajoris in Lithuania, date 1990s, the results have not been Sciences Division. His Summer 1991, shortly before Estonia’s inde- unknown. encouraging. AABS still needs six-year old daughter had pendence was restored: Thomas Palm lectures to increase its visibility in the Baltic states—this is a vital project for become just old enough to about market economics, at the Estonian Man- the present and one that should not be neglected. How to communi- start school. Only the Es- agement Institute (the former School of the cate the excitement and vigor that we find at AABSconferences to tonian school was avail- Communist Party) our Baltic col- able. The daughter’s new language skills proved invaluable to leagues? How her parents at the grocery store: what is in the containers labeled to attract “kama” or “kilu ? “ I hesitated to tell him that I had been one of them to Se- the founders of the Division a year earlier, and, as such, a reviewer attle, Chicago of his job application. or wherever In the Soviet era, people had to wait for years to get a phone line. the scholarly In the fall of l991, I was in Estonia consulting with the government venue may at an economic policy conference at the Suurupi center, some 10 be? We have kilometers out of Tallinn. There was one phone in the building; it to look to the did not work. Had someone from town wanted to contact the prime shores of the Herbert Ellison, Violeta Kelertas, Vytautas Landsbergis, minister, they would have had to send a car. Only a year later, I had Baltic Sea Stephen Hanson: Roundtable on Lithuania and the End of the been asked to head a commission to evaluate the program in busi- to grow our Soviet Union, University of Washington, 2000 ness and economics at Tartu University. I had a question for the membership and I wish the present Board and future boards luck in rector, which I e-mailed him just before midnight, from my home finding new solutions to this problem. on the American West Coast. Next morning, about 7 am, I had a AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 15 response, which began with: means for preventing the reality of the Baltic States from falling into a “Dear Toomas, Excuse the delay….. black memory hole. The permanence of Soviet occupation, which had More recently, it was Estonians who wrote the basic code for endured for a quarter century, seemed to permeate “realistic” analyses Skype. On a per capita basis, there are more cell phones in Estonia in media and many government circles. In the words of Readers Di- than there are in the United States. One advantage of “coming late” gest, these were “Dream States” which still received perfunctory and to technology is that you can “leapfrog!” evidently “futile” declarations regarding the non-recognition of the The inability to travel abroad was one of the major complaints of incorporation of these states into the USSR. In July 1974, the govern- “Homo Sovieticus.” It was only marginally easier for Westerners ment of Australia decided that the time had come to dispense with this to peer behind the iron curtain. After the transition, travel in both non-recognition “charade.” But for the determined opposition of the directions has become “old hat.” The city of Portland, Oregon, my local Baltic communities, this Australian move, which was reversed current home town, has a formal “Friendship City” arrangement after 17 months, could have become the beginning of a long parade of with the government of Tallinn, the city of my birth. Portland has new “realist” states. been visited by three of Tallinn’s mayors, multiple other politicians, Concern about this increasing acceptance of injustice became the composers and conductors, choirs, dance troupes, theater person- driving force for Baltic community involvement with the AABS. alities, academicians, relatives and friends. Most recently, I met a Widespread participation in various activities of AABS, including vol- dozen Estonian college kids in Oregon for the summer. They are untary work, funding, publicity, journal editing and leadership, welled selling children’s books door to door. Their hope is to pay for their because of a rarely articulated but always present goal for many– Bal- trip (with, hopefully, some dollars left over), to polish their English tic State independence. This vitality and dynamism was undoubtedly language skills, and to have an adventure. Not only have the emigrés best reflected in the role of Jānis Gaigulis, the executive director of the visited the “old country,” but it has become increasingly common to AABS. He, like many others in this organization, was not an academic encounter friends, neighbors and colleagues who “just loved” Tal- but a dedicated volunteer. As well, there were very few academics for linn, even if the beer at the “Raekoja Plats” is overpriced. (On my whom Baltic studies became a major part of their university respon- last visit, I saw five large cruise ships in dock at the same time). sibilities. Portland now has the largest “Estonian” folk dance troupe in This underlying common purpose created strong friendship ties. In- North America only because about half of the dancers are “Ameri- deed, the high degree of communion, camaraderie and solidarity, par- cans.” For example, two Mormon missionaries who spent two alleled the bonds felt by many soldiers sharing trenches in wartime. years in Estonia have learned the language, and have just returned With the advent of Baltic State independence, the underlying from performing at the Dance Festival. The dance group also in- grid of dynamic popular energy slowly but inexorably retrenched. cluded a young Estonian fellow from Washington D.C. who did not A major goal had been achieved. Nonetheless, the scholarly side think it “odd” to fly to Portland to rehearse before joining the danc- of the AABS failed to excite or capture the imagination of many ers in Tallinn. The choir of a Portland community college has par- local Baltic researchers. The AABS office, based at the University ticipated in several of the Estonian Song Festivals, and has taken of Latvia, was never taken seriously by the school administration concert tours of the country. Several of the singers have married or incorporated as a potential vehicle for international contacts Estonians. Others, long since graduated, continue to sing Estonian and expansion. At times it seemed that the greatest interest in the music, almost exclusively, in the alumni choir. AABS was focused on the use or takeover of the million dollar Travel is a sign of a globalizing economy. Recently, when trav- AABS fund. The Journal of Baltic Studies became a useful vehicle eling around Antarctica, my wife and I quite unexpectedly came for international publication of local scholarly articles, but very upon a large barrel on one of the islands. The barrel dates from the few locals became its sub- heyday of Antarctic whaling in the 19th century. Mail addressed scribers. to whalers on ships anywhere in the region would be dumped in The idea of Baltic solidar- the barrel on the expectation that the addressee would eventually ity, embraced by many AABS get there to sift through the mail. When a sailor saw an “outgoing” members, for the most part item addressed to someone in a part of the world that he would be has not found deep roots or going to, he was “morally obliged” to not only take the letter with resonance in the three separate him, but also to deliver it in person. The postal system is still oper- “mother countries.” Regional ating to this day. How effective could it possibly be? studies have mostly devolved to We decided to write a postcard to friends in Tallinn and dropped local coun- it in the barrel. The card was delivered (by an Estonian tourist?) in try stud- person, within a month! ies. Baltic As discouraging as the current economic downturn and the rum- solidarity blings from Russia are, research by, and advice from, AABS can be evidenced one element in giving hope for the resurgence of Baltic economic, in the “Bal- political and social institutions. AABS, “Just Do it!” tic Way” of August 23, 1989, The Continued Relevance of AABS Experience when two Juris Dreifelds, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock million peo- Changing faces of University. AABS President 2000-2002 ple joined Juris Dreifelds, 2002 The founders of the AABS had several reasons for initiating this hands to organization two generations ago. For many, however, there was also demonstrate their desire for freedom, has only reappeared sporadically. a serious fundamental purpose beyond detached academic inquiry The moribund state of the “Baltic Assembly” highlights this new reality. that guided participation. Many people saw this venture as a strategic The three states are more often in direct competition with each other than 16 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 joined in a common purpose. Indeed, the current President of Estonia and ded in our cultural communities and thus we own, to an extent, the many other Estonians have expended time and effort to promote Estonia “exile experience.” The latter included a good deal of cultural and as a new member of Scandinavia, and very definitely not part of Baltica. political baggage: an often uncritical conservatism and knee-jerk Could it be that the three states are focusing on self-discovery after half anti-Communism and, among the older generation in particular, a a century of arrested development? Perhaps they suffer from something certain degree of isolation from the culture, world-view and values that could be best described as a collective inferiority complex (We are of American and Canadian societies and academia. Our bifurcated so-o good!). Certainly the real conflicts over resources (oil, fish), over experience distinguished us from our non-Baltic colleagues. boundaries, over investments and over access to various EU and other The young scholars who will now dominate the Association thrive funds have fed a certain prejudicial strain in their respective populations. in a wonderful universe, previously unimaginable to those men- There seems to be an almost total neglect of news coverage by each about tioned above: democratic elections, a free market, visa-free travel its Baltic neighbours. Very few students are provided more than a per- to the lands of their research interests, unrestricted communication functory overview of the history of their neighbours (even of Russia). with Baltic colleagues via cell phone or Skype, and all the rest. In this new maelstrom of competing interests, there is another Our generation imagined these possibilities only within the realm sombre reality. There is a surprisingly small number of active Bal- of fantasy, a kind of science fiction world. Alexander Shtromas tic scholars in all three republics. Most of these, moreover, are un- and Andrei Amalrik were among the few who suggested a collapse derfunded, overworked and often simply struggling for their daily of the ossified Communist world by the 1980s: they were exposed existence. Multiple jobs and few sources of financing have placed to (mostly gentle) ridicule. It is instructive that both were exiles a pall on their scholarly energies. themselves. I am ashamed to say that I was one of the skeptics, Paradoxically, in spite of the attainment of EU and NATO mem- but at least I had the bership, there has never been a greater need for spirited and dynamic opportunity to apolo- Baltic scholarship to understand some very perplexing psychologi- gize to Dr. Shtromas cal, sociological and political realities afflicting the three republics. during a particularly The ideological cement that commonly holds countries together has beer-soaked evening in become seriously frayed in the Baltics. Surprisingly, over half of 1990. young people queried in a Latvia poll indicated that they wanted to This is not to say live permanently elsewhere. Trust in public institutions is in the sin- that the new world is a gle digit range. The perception of politicians as incorrigible crooks Baltic Disneyland: the intent on corruption permeates the thinking of a majority. Many problems are obvious have already left for other countries. Various blogs and interactive and immense, especial- media highlight the widespread contempt felt for the infrastructure ly today. The demands Saulius Sužiedėlis with his grandson at the Lithuanian Festival in Baltimore in May, 2009 of their local homelands. The recent Russian attempt to force feed of the EU have turned world media with their version of history with respect to the Baltic out to be a curse to many, especially on the lower socio-economic States demands a solid phalanx of knowledgeable scholars to offer scale, whose current tribulations lead to amnesia about the hor- soundly based sustainable evidence and facts. rendous aspects of postwar life on the wrong side of divided Eu- The economic crash suffered by all three Baltic States (even by rope. But I would pay special attention to what Andrejs Plakans the much-lauded Baltic Tiger, Estonia) begs for deeper understand- has identified as the problem of intellectual convergence: We are as ing of Baltic economic processes. The impact of almost total for- physically close as ever to our Baltic colleagues and the Baltic so- eign ownership of local media is also an uncharted field of study. cieties in which they work, and yet there is the painful experience These and other issues need a solid cadre of intellectuals and schol- that, with notable exceptions, the people “over there” have long ars to provide more depth to the limited understanding of social inhabited a radically different cultural, political and mental world. forces storming over the three “sister republics.” It is not “our” world and we need to think clearly whether it is our Ironically, the AABS, in view of its past experience, is positioned mission to make them more like us. Let’s leave it to the young ones better than most other organizations in meeting what appears to be to tackle this one. a new “existential threat.” It is inevitable that given my profession I will conclude with a historical theme. It has been one of the great achievements of our Association that on its founding in 1968 it resisted pressures to be- History, Politics and New Challenges: the More come yet another politicized exile lobby. Jānis Gaigulis deserves Things Change… much credit for this. And yet, as has been pointed out, we are not Saulius Sužiedelis, Professor Emeritus of History, Millersville dispassionate observers of the Baltic past and present. Nor should University. AABS President 2002-2004 we be: academic standards do not require us to adopt a value-free In perusing the list of past presidents of the AABS we can distin- outlook in our research and teaching. The banal clichés may or may guish generations. There were the scholars who came of age during not be true: that the more things change, the more they remain the the war, mainly Baltic exiles who arrived in their adopted homelands ready to enter secondary schools and universities: I recall here my dear friend and mentor, Prof. V. Stanley Vardys. These men and women were true refugees: their bond with the lands of their ances- tors was visceral, firmly fixed in memories of Europe. Most needed to learn a second language as young adult immigrants. My genera- tion, who emigrated as infants or toddlers from DP camps, received degrees at the height of the Cold War. Our connection to the Baltic lands was strong but largely vicarious and we soon achieved native Andrejs Plakans, Toivo Raun, and Saulius Sužiedėlis at the 2006 Conference on fluency in our new language. Yet the majority of us remain embed- Baltic Studies, Washington DC. AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 17 same, or that there is nothing new under the sun. And yet… independence, captured my imagination. By the 1990s, the wish The Cold War may have ended but the recent geopolitical moves to soften the borders between disciplines and better comprehend of the Putin/Medvedev regime leave no doubt that, at the very least, the narratives of other cultures and cultural forms informed the the “new Russia” seeks to restore what it views as a rightful sphere broader intellectual landscape as I understood it. Cross-fertiliza- of influence in the “near abroad.” The recent brouhaha over the tion between disciplines and working between cultures had become relative evils of Nazism and Communism, the egregious allegations mainstream in many academic departments. that Poland was a Nazi ally, or the contradictory charge that the Convinced that this transformation ranks among the most impor- nation’s courageous stand against Hitler in 1939 triggered World tant developments in the humanities, I focused my scholarly efforts War II, the establishment of the Medvedev “historical commission” in the same direction and searched for opportunities to reach be- dominated by the security services, the rehabilitation of Stalin and yond my own scholarly community. I explored neighbouring disci- all the other elements of full-blown revisionism accompanied by plines, chaired the Program of Comparative Literature, developed the denial of Soviet crimes are troubling developments. The fact some expertise in other areas and also taught courses outside my that all of this is orchestrated at the highest levels makes it clear primary field of study, mainly in the Department of Sociology. that this is part of an overall political strategy. This will doubtless Extending my set patterns in teaching and research to include impact Russian historical memory, especially impressionable young things Baltic seemed natural and I was happy to see AABS develop minds. Too many uncritical minds in the West remain grateful cap- greater interest in the Baltic Sea Region as a whole and continue tives of the Soviet Great Patriotic War narrative, a theme cynically to make strides towards active engagement with a wider range of manipulated by those encouraging amnesia about Soviet wartime people, areas, topics and disciplines. The upcoming joint confer- culpability. The clueless speculation of some of the Baltic intel- ence with the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study ligentsia concerning the Holocaust and their own denial of difficult in 2010 is one important and tangible sign pointing to a more inclu- themes of the past are gleefully exploited by Russian deniers and sive and, in my opinion, ever more promising future for AABS. their enablers. This is an intellectual and ethical challenge which I I am curious to see how AABS will continue to re-imagine it- hope young scholars of the AABS will now confront. self, increase its visibility, engage with cultural diversity, encour- age even “deeper” intercultural understanding - also in the Journal of Baltic Studies - and promote initiatives anchored in the Baltic Beyond Baltic Borders states but also deliberately turn its lens outward and reach beyond Thomas Salumets, its borders. Of course, this is only one possible way forward for Professor of German, AABS. But in my opinion, this path promises to make the sig- University of Brit- nificance of Baltic Studies more obvious and lead to stronger and ish Columbia. AABS broader recognition of our association. President 2004-2006 I first became more actively involved with Ties That Bind the Association for the Inta Gāle Carpenter, Research Scholar, Folklore and Ethno- Advancement of Baltic musicology, Indiana University. AABS President 2006-2008 Studies in 1998 when I Andrejs Plakans, along with many others, rightly points to the accepted the editor- central place “personal convergences” have played in sustaining ship of the Journal of AABS and promoting Baltic Studies over the last four decades. In- Baltic Studies for a deed, as a folklorist, I might venture that personal interconnections three-year term. After constitute the vital foundation for the other two convergences An- my tenure as editor I drejs contemplates: institutional and intellectual. served for another six My own first experience with folklorists in Latvia took place in years on the Board of 1983, during a personal pilgrimage to the country of my birth. I had Directors - as has been no professional customary, two years duties or ties, but each as President- since I worked in Elect (2002-04), Presi- Special Projects dent (2004-2006) and at the Folklore In- then Director at Large Thomas Salumets at a conference in Tartu in stitute of Indiana (2006-2008). Before honour of Uku Masing's 100th birthday (23. Sept. University and my membership on 2009). Photo by Alar Madisson. had been part of the Board I had attended some AABS conferences and published the editorial team an article in Journal of Baltic Studies but on the whole my partici- for The Handbook pation remained largely occasional. I devoted most of my time to of American Folk- teaching and research in German Studies, my home discipline at lore (published by the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. IU Press in 1983), I What attracted me to AABS? Influenced mostly perhaps by wanted to present postmodern literary theory, which had left its mark on much of the a copy to fellow humanities in North America in the 1980s, I came to understand folklorists at the my own work increasingly in “relational” terms. In particular, the Latvian Academy question of human interdependencies, how we co-determine one of Sciences. At the Inta Carpenter, Presidential Address, 2006 AABS another in co-operation and in conflict yet remain in league with time, I was fully conference 18 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 immersed in that illusion of exile – the “wishful thinking” Andrejs them. Exile and native scholars planned international conferences, alludes to – which expects a seamless merger with the homeland I served on thesis committees, edited and translated publications, had heard so much about from family and community. Arranging wrote grants, and found shared interests. I personally benefited a meeting for a private individual – moreover an unknown from a greatly from archived interviews by scholars in Latvia of Latvians university unlikely to be recognized as the mecca for folklore study in Brazil. Most especially, individuals, often strangers to one an- in the U.S. – was a feat accomplished by a highly placed distant other, teamed up during numerous “field expeditions” to collect life relative in Rīga, over whose office desk hung one of the ubiqui- stories throughout Latvia. Interviewers volunteered in exchange for tous portraits of Lenin. When I presented the Handbook to the as- room and board (in the quirky environs of museums and schools sembled four or five folklorists, they huddled together over its table as well as welcoming personal homes). Disparate researchers and of contents. With a mixture of confusion and envy, they excitedly lay persons befriended one another as they walked from house to whispered and translated among themselves, pointing to the range house to talk to old-timers, as they solved problems, shared meals, of topics covered: the folklore of crime, occupation, family, stu- impressions, and a growing understanding of what it had meant to dents, urban and suburban places, churches, social conflict, and the live in Soviet times, as well as had opportunities to talk about their many methods and theories delineated. Eventually one of them put own lives abroad. their collective surprise into words, “Oh, that we could pursue such Something similar happened with regard to post-doctoral topics freely.” Nothing more followed from this first encounter. training at IU. A number of IREX, Fulbright, and AABS-Saltups My second trip to Latvia came seven years later, in 1990, to do scholars and their families from Rīga found Bloomington to be a research on the song festival as a moment of reconciliation between home-away-from-home. Personal ties led to plotting about other natives and exiles. My fieldwork confirmed what was becoming endeavors. In my own case, friendships with visiting scholars led to increasingly clear in many circles, namely, that merging as “one” the convening of a folklore symposium in Rīga in 1995 (supported wouldn’t be imminent or smooth. I recall the rise and proliferation by IREX), joint grant proposals, team fieldwork in a Siberian Lat- of (sometimes hilarious) anecdotal gossip about returning exiles vian village, reunions at the two AABS conferences recently held who were perceived as a touch too arrogant and too dismissive of in Bloomington, and even the production of a cookbook in Latvian what was known by those who had lived in place during their ab- of American recipes (which demonstrates that scholarly lives are sence. AABS was not entirely exempt from such chatter, and thus, obviously richly diverse). scholarly convergences initially got off on a rocky footing. Dare What I’m saying reiterates what Andrejs concludes and others in I say, it took time for personal ties to overcome first impressions their essays have demonstrated: the variety and intensity of physi- in order to grow into the powerful nurturing force they often are cal convergences are “impressive indeed.” In my experience, con- today. verging energies, interests, and potentially endless initiatives have But that same rumor mill had its positive side as well. In 1990, abundantly spilled over among individuals who have come to know it was mighty sensitive to the arrival of each visitor from abroad, and like one another. Going forward from the first generation will and, despite no effort on my part to establish academic ties, I was necessarily take new paths. Young AABS members do not carry quickly invited into a conversation about the budding life-story the same baggage nor dream the same dreams nor unstintingly collecting venture envisioned by Māra Zirnīte, a practicing jour- dedicate themselves to cause as did their predecessors. But the vital nalist. British anthropologist Vieda Skultans, as I remember, was center of productive energy, I maintain, will continue to be fueled also at this meeting. The subsequent development of Dzīvesstāsts by those whose ties to one another are broadly and warmly human. (Life Story) as an oral history archive is a tale of unstinting per- AABS has the opportunity to continue to play a role in doing all it sonal agency and a convergence of patriotic fervor and scholarly can to enable members to get to know one another as they work input. I was a minor partner, helping as I could during a Fulbright together on shared interests. semester in 1994, at 3 x 3 sessions in Daugavpils, and in many late night brainstormings over food and drink. In the 1990s, Western scholarly ideas were shifting in useful directions for nascent aca- Convergences: Mission Accomplished! demic initiatives in the Baltic countries. For example, history was Guntis Šmidchens, Assistant Professor of Baltic Studies, Uni- increasingly being perceived as narrative, even as a form of cul- versity of Washington. AABS President 2008-2010 tural mythology; folklore was fast moving away from a concern I have one blurry photograph that I took at the 1990 Conference with classifications by type and motif to a fascination with just how on Baltic Studies, during the “Convergences” address by Andrejs are stories told, to whom, with what intent. Intellectual conver- Plakans. The picture, and many pages of scribbled notes in my files, gence was tremendously facilitated by electronic communication. help me reconstruct the electricity of that now very distant confer- I was gratified to watch Dzīvesstāsts adapt the work of folklor- ence. The Berlin Wall had come down only a few months earlier. ists by paying particular attention to the aesthetics of narration. Baltic borders, too, were opening up. The imminent convergence They recorded superbly talented life-story tellers for the task of of Baltic and American scholarship was in the air. In this essay, I’ll reconstructing historical experience, with the result that many of recall transformations in my field of folkloristics after 1990, when the 3000 interviews archived today in Rīga are gripping, richly de- so-called “Baltic” and “Western” folklore research converged tailed, contextualized resources. exactly as prophesied by Plakans—physically, institutionally and Over the next decade-plus, with great satisfaction I watched intellectually. I won’t examine the role of the AABS, which has the circle of collaborators in Dzīvesstāsts grow (in the Baltic and always been in the background, catalyzing and energizing. beyond) as individuals worked together on the “life story boom.” A week after the 1990 AABS conference, I was in Rīga at an Local shining lights were brought into contact with top European exhibit in the Latvian Folklore Archive, and I accidentally bumped and American scholars at conferences and on grant projects. Young into somebody. I excused myself. “My name is Guntis, and I’m a graduate students joined the effort as interns and paid staff, and folklorist,” he said to me*. “Ditto,” I replied, accepting his invita- they in turn were inspired by the scholarly world opening up before tion to lunch. And the convergence had begun.

AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 19 Back Tartu, where it is published today. home in the Americans have much to learn from Baltic folklorists, particu- USA, I found larly in the realm of academic publishing. While one of our lead- many of my ing journals, Southern Folklore, recently passed into oblivion, for A m e r i c a n example, Estonian folklorists have established three excellent new colleagues periodical publications: Folklore, Sator, and Mäetagused. Though gazing at they do also exist in paper versions, their main form exists online, the Baltic: with open access to full text. Moreover, all of the classic works “Write me in Estonian folkloristics, including the abovementioned six-volume something proverb collection by Arvo Krikmann, have been converted to e- about recent format, freely available on the website, www.folklore.ee. In Lat- trends in Bal- via, Šmits’ twelve-volume collection of folktales and legends is now tic proverb Andrejs Plakans keynote address, 1990 AABS conference, online, and the dainas are in a web-based, searchable database, free research,” blurry photo by Guntis Šmidchens of charge. Excellent Lithuanian publications such as the Anthol- was the repeated request whenever I met Wolfgang Mieder, the ogy of Lithuanian Ethnoculture and the journal Liaudies kultūra world’s premier paremiologist and editor of the journal, De Prover- parallel the Estonian publications as online scholarly resources. bium (Arvo Krikmann’s six-volume collection of Estonian proverbs We Americans (and, I might add, the Fellows in Finland also, and was legendary, and Kazys Grigas and Elza Kokare were household others, too) struggle to keep print-and-paper formats alive by rais- names in the field, but Americans couldn’t read what they wrote in ing prices and restricting research publications to affluent libraries their native languages). Graduate student that I was, full of good and narrow, members-only circles of professional associations, but intentions, I promised but later reneged, having come face to face Baltic folklorists have adopted the democratic ideal that scholarly with the hellish enormity of the task. Then Regina Bendix asked me knowledge should be disseminated freely to all who desire it. to write an overview of current Baltic folkloristics for the Ameri- At the 2004 Conference of the American Folklore Society, the can Folklore Society’s Newsletter, and this time I promised and kept prominent folklorist, Alan Dundes, concluded his Invited Presi- my word; my much-too-short-and-superficial essay was promptly dential Address on a positive note, marveling at the “tremendous translated and republished in Zeitschrift für Volkskunde. folkloristic energy” he had encountered during his recent trip to Demand for knowledge about Baltic folklore and folkloristics the Baltic: “I believe,” he wrote, “Estonia is well on the way to was great, too great for the few of us Americans who could read rivaling its neighbor Finland as the prime mover of folklore schol- Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian. Luckily, folklorists in the Baltic arship in the world today. And Latvia and Lithuania are also major quickly rose to the challenge. Thanks to generous support from players in contemporary international folkloristics of the twenty- IREX, the American Folklore Society’s Baltic Section was able to first century.” I humbly agree with the late Alan Dundes. In my bring panels of scholars to North America, to present papers about own research, I grapple with the tremendous challenge of keep- Baltic urban legends, folksongs, and epics at the conferences of ing up to date on Baltic folkloristics. For every problem I engage, the AFS and AAASS. At one such conference, another leading I encounter a stack of publications that precede me: I’m trying American folklorist, Jan H. Brunvand, remarked that Balts bring a to write a book about singing traditions, for example, but Kristin welcome spark of international inspiration to the AFS. Kuutma, Dace Bula, Stasys Skrodenis and many others are always In the 21st century, activity shifted from North America to the two steps ahead of me: They are well versed in international theory Baltic. American folklorists met Balts at international folklore and trends, they possess formidable knowledge of their native ma- seminars in Finland, and soon went on to visit Estonia, Latvia and terials, and they leave a trail of books and articles that I must follow Lithuania. A milestone was the 2005 Congress of the International and absorb before I can contribute anything new to the field. Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR), organized by the The 2013 ISFNR Congress is scheduled to take place in Vilnius, Estonian folklorists in Tartu. Soon afterwards, the main resource Lithuania. I’m going. Are you? for international urban legend research, FOAFtale News, moved to *Today, I note the eerie resemblance between his surname, Pakalns, and that of the abovementioned keynote speaker, Plakans. Upcoming Conferences and Events

When? Event Where? April 22-24 22nd AABS Conference on Baltic Studies University of Washington, Seattle September AABS Australian Chapter Conference Melbourne, Australia Nov. 18 – 21 Annual Conference Los Angeles, CA. 42nd National Convention of the American Association for the Westin Bonaventure Hotel and Suites Advancement of Slavic Studies June 11 Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe Stockholm, Sweden

Spring AABS Conference, University of Illinois-Chicago 2012 Chicago 2012 2011 2010

20 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 Re s o u r c e s Baltic Studies Collections in North American Research Libraries, 1989-2009 Michael Biggins, Slavic, Baltic and Lithuania) and to more moderate gains based in Tallinn, Rīga or Vilnius. How- East European Studies Librarian, Af- of around 50% in Latvia. This growth ever, for academic and more specialized filiate Professor of Slavic Languages, over twenty years has been far more publications not available through Web University of Washington dramatic than the growth of publishing vendors, some libraries still rely—as we If 1989 was a watershed year for Bal- output in mature European economies, did 20 years ago—on productive book tic studies in general, it also marks a di- such as Germany or France, where the and periodical exchanges with the ma- vide, in several respects, for university 20-year increase has been just 20% and jor Baltic libraries. libraries supporting Baltic studies. 30%, respectively. Some part of the Lastly, second only to independence, For one, the unofficial roster of North increase can be ascribed to the return the biggest factor distinguishing the American universities actively engaged home of publishing activity that for 45 Baltic collections of today from those of in developing research-level collections years could only take place in emigra- 1989—not to mention, in all likelihood, for Baltic studies changed significantly tion. As for Baltica published outside 2029—is the Internet. With millions of across this divide. If, before 1989, the of the region, after 1989 North America books in all languages available soon leaders were Wisconsin (for Latvian and witnessed a threefold boom in publish- through Google Books, and the national Lithuanian), Pennsylvania (for Lithu- ing on Baltic topics and Germany saw libraries in Vilnius, Rīga and Tallinn al- anian), Indiana (for Estonian), and Har- a 50% increase. Altogether, for North ready making huge strides in their own vard (for all three), in the twenty years American libraries with Baltic interests EU-supported projects to digitize the since, most of these libraries have down- there has been far more material that national printed heritage, much of the graded their collecting activity, and a needs to be captured out of the post- older, copyright-free material now held new constellation of rapidly growing 1989 publishing landscape than ever in our Baltic print collections will soon Baltic collections has emerged—one that had to be acquired before, and with ac- also be available through a few mouse is led by Yale, Harvard, Stanford and ademic book and periodical inflation far clicks. Since the late 1990s, many Baltic Washington. This shift is nothing alarm- outstripping the consumer price index, newspapers have gone online, some of ing in itself, but rather a consequence the result has been that these proliferat- them using a costly, pay-per-use com- of the natural ebb and flow of research ing titles are now owned by fewer and mercial model that few North American library strengths over time, as libraries fewer libraries. libraries are likely to sustain. On the try to coordinate their priorities with the Third, in some respects the ways our other hand, the national libraries have birth, growth and (sometimes) decline of libraries acquire Baltic materials have done admirable work creating detailed campus programs, the latter most often also changed fundamentally—while in and chronologically deep online article signaled by faculty retirements. others they have not. Until 1990 many indexes made, for the most part, freely A second major post-1989 change U.S. libraries depended on the Soviet available as a public good. with consequences for libraries has book export monopoly, Mezhdunaro- In short, in 2009 our Baltic library been the liberalization of the publish- dnaia kniga (International Book), to collections exist in an environment of ing industry in all three Baltic coun- supply them with publications from complexity and flux—both of informa- tries. Throughout the 1980s the output throughout the Soviet Union, including tion formats (printed books and jour- of the Baltic book markets remained the Baltics, automatically and in accor- nals, films on DVD, licensed full-text stable and mostly undistinguished— dance with a collecting profile estab- databases, e-books and the free-access underwritten, planned and filtered as lished by the library. That monopoly Web) and of acquisition methods—that they were by the local Soviet govern- came apart with the Soviet Union, and goes far beyond what we’ve ever dealt ments and censorship boards. Some North American libraries had to be- with before. For now, North Ameri- innovation in terms of content slipped come more proactive about their Baltic can libraries’ holdings of current Baltic past the increasingly negligent censors’ collections, if they intended to grow studies materials remain collectively eyes in the very late 1980s, at the same them. Most often, the earliest post- strong, and even if each item is held time as economic and political crisis 1989 Baltic book dealers were based by fewer libraries across the continent caused a drop in output. This period either in Germany or North America, a than in the past, most of these can still of retrenchment in publishing contin- fact which introduced a whole new lay- be readily borrowed via our established ued into the first few years of indepen- er of overhead costs and challenged our interlibrary lending networks. But dence, generally through 1993. But as ability to support extensive research without some form of external support, new markets formed, there followed a collections. With time and the emer- the economic and organizational pres- boom in book production that has taken gence of Internet-based commerce, it sures bearing down on our research the total number of titles published per has become both convenient and af- libraries and universities will make it year to twice that of late Soviet and ear- fordable to acquire mainstream mate- ever more challenging to maintain this ly independence years (in Estonia and rial through Amazon-type bookstores level of coverage. AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 21 US-Baltic Fulbright Scholars Exchanges, 1993-2009 Compiled by Guntis Šmidchens The Fulbright Scholar program sends U.S. scholars to approximately 125 countries around the world and brings visiting scholars to the U.S. for post-doctoral research and/or to lecture at host universities. The following data on one category of international exchanges, the Fulbright Scholars program administered by CIES, is an example of the geographic and disci- pline diversity represented in the Fulbright programs. Baltic Scholars to US: US Scholars to Baltics Top US Sending Institutions: Top Disciplines Top Disciplines: Arizona State University (3) Political Science (20); Political Science (19); Columbia University (3) Chemistry (13); Law (17); Indiana University (3) Economy (11); Business Administration (16); Louisiana State (3) Physics & Astronomy (9); Communications (14); University-Baton Rouge (3) Sociology (9); American Literature (13) Northern Illinois University (3) American Literature (8); Education (13); Portland State University (3) Education (8); Sociology (12); Rutgers (3) Engineering (8); Creative Writing (11); University of Kansas (3) Language & Literature, non-US (8); Music (10). University of Wisconsin-Madison (3) Linguistics (8); Anthropology (7); Top US Hosts Business Administration (7). Columbia University (10) University of Wisconsin-Madison (8) US Scholars to Baltic Baltic Scholars to US Indiana University (6) Estonia 57 61 Georgetown University (5) Latvia 75 66 University of California-Irvine (5) Stanford University (4) Lithuania 63 64 University of California-Berkeley (4) Total 195 191

US Academic Exchanges with Lithuania Rasa Baukuvienė, Embassy of the With independence from the Soviet Lithuania and the United States. In turn, United States in Vilnius, Lithuania Union, various academic exchange pro- Lithuanian grantees go to the United According to available statistics, the grams were established with Lithuania– States. Today Lithuania counts more first exchanges between American and IREX, Edmund Muskie, Fulbright, Ron than 400 participants in various educa- Lithuanian scholars started in 1977. Dur- Brown, and Humphrey were all estab- tional exchange programs to the United ing the Soviet times academic exchanges lished in 1992. Lithuanian-U.S. aca- States (Lithuanian Fulbright – 155, U.S. between the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist demic exchanges are administered by Fulbright – 157, Senior Specialists – Republic and the United States existed the Public Affairs Section (PAS) of U.S. 16, Hubert H. Humphrey – 6, Edmund through the central government in Mos- Embassy in Vilnius, widely known as Muskie – 56, Summer Institutes – 18, cow. They were limited and under strict the American Center. With Lithuania’s Ron Brown – 2, IREX – 2, and others). control. Students were not included in membership in NATO and EU, some ac- Fulbright grantees come from a variety exchanges, and scholars could not con- ademic exchange programs were closed of academic fields of research and study duct research. American scholars were (IREX, Muskie, Ron Brown), while oth- including natural sciences, social sciences, allowed to come to only two institu- er exchange programs continue. New linguistics, and media. Graduate students tions of higher education: Vilnius State exchange initiatives such as ASSIST, normally study for a full academic year, University and Vilnius Engineering and Youth for Understanding, Benjamin while scholars may travel for a semester Construction Institute (now Vilnius Ged- Franklin, and Lithuanian Youth Leaders or an academic year. Through the initia- iminas Technical University). From 1977 were initiated by private sponsors. tive of fellows, the Lithuanian Fulbright to 1987, ten American Fulbright schol- Since 1992, PAS has established a net- Alumni Association was established in ars lectured in Vilnius. The first scholar work of Lithuanian institutions of higher 2000. It includes government members, from Lithuania went to the U.S. in 1977. education that regularly receive Ameri- prominent academics and scientists, dip- The second scholar received a grant only can lecturers, scientific researchers and lomats, and one EU parliamentarian. ten years later, in 1987. Two more Lithu- students, thereby improving the chances In 2001, a Memorandum of Under- anian scholars were invited to lecture at for curricular reform and broadening standing (MOU) between the Govern- American universities through 1990. cultural/educational contacts between ment of the United States of America 22 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 and the Government of the Republic of ence and Technology Agreement with strengthens the already close relation- Lithuania on the Fulbright Program was Lithuania. The agreement allows the ship between the U.S. and Lithuania signed. The MOU was renewed in 2008. U.S. and Lithuania to share information, The PAS works in close cooperation Based on the memorandum, the Lithu- perform joint research, exchange sci- with two “EducationUSA” Centers, in anian Government became involved in entists and researchers, organize joint Vilnius and Kaunas, which disseminate the applicants’ selection process, and scientific events and enhance collabo- information on U.S. universities and allotted funding to support the Ful- ration between the scientific and edu- administer academic tests, such as the bright alumni activities in the country. cational institutions of both countries. TOEFL, GRE, TOEIC, SAT, and help to In 2009, the United States signed a Sci- Academic and scientific cooperation prepare for GRE and USMLE. Four Decades of US-Estonian Exchanges

Jane Susi, Educational/Cultural As- ers and recognized academics, as well as year in the U.S., and 3 Estonian school sistant, and Tiiu Vitsut, Cultural/ representatives of the Ministry of Edu- administrators have attended a six-week Outreach Assistant, Embassy of the cation also contribute to the selection exchange program at U.S. schools. Al- United States in Tallinn, Estonia process of new candidates, particularly though the one-year Fulbright Class- The history of academic exchanges for high-level programs requiring tech- room Teacher Exchange program has between Estonia and the United States nical expertise. not been offered in Estonia since 2009, dates back to the 1970’s. At that time, In 2001, a group of local Fulbright- the six –week Teaching Excellence and Estonia was one of the 15 republics of the ers, IREX Alumni and Muskie Fellows Achievement program currently pro- former Soviet Union, and rare academic established an NGO for Estonians who vides professional development oppor- exchanges were authorized through the had previously participated in U.S. Gov- tunities in the U.S. for Estonian teachers. central academic institutions in Moscow. ernment programs in the United States. Following the discontinuation of the After Estonia reinstated its indepen- The NGO cooperates closely with PAS. two-year Muskie Fellowship for Esto- dence and re-established diplomatic re- The association has approximately 100 nian applicants in 1999, the inception of lations with the United States in October alumni, two-thirds of whom participated the one-year Hubert Humphrey Fellow- 1991, the administration of the Fulbright in U.S. Government-sponsored academic ship provided opportunities for Estonian program, along with other academic ex- or exchange programs and one third of mid-career professionals. The Humphrey change programs in Estonia, moved to whom studied in the U.S. independently. Fellowship Program brings outstanding the Public Affairs Section (PAS) of the Fulbright grantees come from a di- candidates from countries in states of U.S. Embassy in Tallinn. verse academic background. More than development and transition to the U.S. PAS works in close cooperation with two fourteen students and scholars per year for one-year, non-degree programs that Educational Advising Centers in Tallinn travel to and from Estonia under the Ful- combine graduate level academic work and Tartu, which disseminate informa- bright auspices, which grant up to a full with substantive professional affiliations. tion on U.S. universities, advise Estonian academic year of study or research. The Humphrey Fellows are selected based in students on the application and admission majority of American Fulbright grant- part on their demonstrated potential for process therein, and administer academic ees work with one of six Estonian public leadership as well as their commitment tests, such as the TOEFL and GRE. universities, while efforts are made to to public service in either the public or In 2007, a Memorandum of Under- accommodate the Estonian grantees at private sector. Since the first program standing between the embassy and the the U.S. school of their choice. year, 2000-2001, 12 Estonian Humphrey Estonian Ministry of Education was Altogether, more than 400 academic Fellows have participated in this highly signed. Based on the memorandum, the exchange grantees over three distinct competitive and unique program across Estonian Government became involved program bodies (Fulbright, IREX, Musk- 9 different fields. in the selection process for the Fulbright ie) have taken the opportunity to study More information about the exchange program, and in allocating funding for in American and Estonian Universities. programs is available from James Land, Estonian program participants’ travel Since 1992, 13 Estonian high school PAO, U.S. Embassy Tallinn, Kentmanni 20, to the United States. Former Fulbright- teachers have taught for an academic 15099 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected].

Academic Exchanges between Latvia and the United States Ingrida Bodniece, Embassy of the for business. The Embassy also works program is the J. William Fulbright Pro- United States in Riga, Latvia closely with Education USA, a non-profit gram, designed to increase mutual un- The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. educational advising center under the ae- derstanding between the people of the Embassy in Riga began administering gis of the Riga Business School, to pro- United States and the people of other academic and professional development mote study at U.S. colleges and universi- countries. The Fulbright Program in Lat- exchanges in 1991, when Latvia regained ties among Latvian students. via dates back to a bilateral agreement independence and the Embassy reopened The Embassy’s flagship exchange between the U.S. and the USSR, which AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 23 was signed in 1973. However, Latvia’s grants. Since the Fulbright program studied at New York University, Tisch Fulbright contacts were initially rare. was established in Latvia in 1992, al- School of Arts from 1999-2001; Laura For years, the Fulbright Program oper- most 200 Latvian citizens or legal Prikule, a visual artist who studied at ated strictly as an exchange of lecturers, residents have received Fulbright fel- the San Francisco Art Institute in 2001- as specified in the bilateral exchanges lowships to study, teach or conduct 2002; and Inese Voika, a board member agreement. Few Latvian scholars par- research at U.S. institutions of higher of Transparency International Delna, who ticipated, and only a handful of Ameri- education. The most popular fields for studied at Harvard University, JFK School cans lectured in Latvia. Latvian Fulbright recipients include po- of Government in 2004-2005. Following independence from the So- litical science, economics, social work, In addition to the Fulbright Program, viet Union, a separate Latvian country the sciences and education. Also within the Embassy also administers several oth- program was created during the 1991-92 the Fulbright Program, the Embassy ad- er U.S. Government exchange programs. academic year. Rather than being a part ministers the Hubert H. Humphrey Fel- Thirty-nine Latvians received Muskie of a system that allowed only sporadic lowship Program under which, to date, Fellowships to study in the United States, Latvian participation, Latvian scholars four Latvian mid-career professionals before the program’s discontinuation. In could now apply for and receive awards have engaged in a year of non-degree addition to long-term exchanges, the Em- annually. Open competitions were es- graduate study and professional devel- bassy also facilitates short training pro- tablished for selection, faculty were opment at U.S. universities. grams in the United States. These include able to apply for either research or lec- Several Latvians who are prominent in seminars for Latvian educators who teach ture opportunities, and student awards the fields of politics, diplomacy and the about the Holocaust, which are organized became available. arts, are Fulbright alumni. These include by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Since 1992, six to ten American Ful- Artis Pabriks, a former Minister of For- and the Association of Holocaust Organi- brighters have journeyed to Latvia an- eign Affairs, and current parliamentarian, zations in cooperation with the U.S. De- nually to lecture on topics ranging from who studied political science at the New partment of State. This year, for the first journalism to child psychology. Enrich- School for Social Research in 1997-1998; time, the Embassy is also recruiting Lat- ing opportunities outside of the class- Aivis Ronis, a former Latvian Ambassador vian teachers to participate in the Teach- room also await many grantees to Lat- to NATO, who studied political science at ing Excellence and Achievement Pro- via. Former U.S. grantees have had the Columbia University in 1999-2000; Ina gram, a U.S. State Department program chance to guest lecture at government Druviete, a former Minister of Education that allows foreign teachers to engage in agencies, television networks, and aca- and Science and current parliamentarian, professional training and internships in demic conferences. who studied linguistics at the University the United States, and that will bring U.S. Each year approximately a similar of Pittsburg from 1996-1997; Gatis Smits, teachers on short-term exchange visits to number of Latvians receive Fulbright a well-known stage and film director, who Latvian classrooms.

US-Baltic Fulbright Exchanges Amanda Swain, AABS Student Representative Lithuanian postal service has a flat rate for books within a cer- In September 1993, I arrived at Vytautas Magnus Univer- tain weight, so each day for two weeks I took 5-7 books to the sity in Kaunas, Lithuania to conduct research for my master’s post office where they were wrapped in brown paper, tied with thesis. In addition to my own academic work, I, along with twine and sealed with wax. As I sent them off, I was sure that I two other students in Lithuania, two students in Latvia and would never see them again. Amazingly all of the packages ar- two students in Estonia, launched the Fulbright student ex- rived safely in Seattle several weeks later. Now those volumes change program in the Baltic countries. Even at the time, I of history reside in the University of Washington Library. knew that I was vicariously experiencing history being made. Fifteen years later, there are over 600 American students I was on the ground as Lithuania went through the political, and scholars who also have stories to share about their ex- social and economy changes that characterized its transition periences from US federally-funded Fulbright exchange pro- from a post-Soviet country to a European Union member. grams in the Baltic countries. Fulbright programs provide It was a particularly exciting time for a historian as docu- opportunities for students, scholars, teachers and profession- ments and materials previously suppressed by the Soviet au- als from the U.S. and the Baltic countries to study abroad, thorities were being made public. Once a month, one of my conduct research, lecture and engage in professional devel- friends would take me to a bookstore and point out all the books opment. The student exchange programs are administered – memoirs and histories and collections of documents from by Institute of International Education (IIE) and the scholar the Soviet years – that I had to buy and take back to America. exchange programs are administered by Council for Inter- “This one, and this one, and this one,” she would say. “They are national Exchange of Scholars (CIES). The Humphrey Fel- all important. Can you believe we can now know about these lowship program for mid-level professionals and the Teacher things?” I would dutifully purchase everything she selected Exchange program are coordinated separately. All of these for me. When it came time to return to the United States, I had programs provide rich experiences for the participants. so many books that I couldn’t carry them home with me. The Continued on p. 31. 24 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 AABS Annual Report, 2008-2009 President’s Report Happy birthday to all of us! Our dear Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies celebrated its fortieth anniver- sary this year. The recipe for our longevity and continued strength lies in the contributions of every member. A quick tally: There are 582 of us, located on four continents. For four decades, we have continued the tradition of meeting face-to-face once every two years here in North America, at the Conference on Baltic Studies. Nowadays, we “meet” more often in our Association’s publications: The Journal of Baltic Studies, this Newsletter, and, increasingly, the pages of the AABS website. Money for these and other AABS activities comes from two sources: Membership dues, and charitable donations by both members and nonmembers. The Association – that is, its members and supporters – is grateful to all of our members and supporters for this money and voluntary work which makes our conferences and publications possible. Thank you! Thank us! Without us, our association wouldn’t exist. The upcoming year is an exciting one. We will meet in Seattle on April 22-24, 2010, at the AABS conference held jointly with the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. By then, we will have elected our new AABS Board of Di- rectors, who will, with their energy and work, ensure another two productive years for the Association. Please be on the lookout for ballots and conference registration materials that will arrive in your mailboxes in February 2010. Our Journal of Baltic Studies is also celebrating: Many of us have just finished reading the newest issue: Number 4 of Volume 40, another page-turner which arrived in the mail in December. Our Journal has seen particular growth these past five years; its new, sleek, blue cover signals cutting edge contents written by leaders in multiple disciplines. Thanks to our partnership with Routledge, its electronic distribution has expanded to reach more libraries than ever before. We are grateful to the outgo- ing Editor, David J. Smith and his staff, for five years of leadership and five volumes of riveting reading. During the period of transition at the JBS, Inta Carpenter took a leave of absence from the AABS Board to hold the fort as Interim Editor, and is producing two excellent issues for our reading pleasure. Thank you, Inta! As this Newsletter goes to print in January 2010, the AABS Board has just appointed the Journal’s new Editor, Terry Clark. Terry, welcome to the team! We look forward to three great years of working with you at the helm of our proud flagship, the Journal of Baltic Studies. The past year-and-a-half has also seen a transition in the administration of the AABS. In January of 2010, Anita Juberts will take a well-deserved rest after seven years of service to the AABS as Administrative Executive Officer. Anita announced her upcoming retirement in fall of 2008, and in April 2009 the AABS Board appointed Irena Blekys as her successor. Since then, Anita and Irena have been working overtime to ensure that the Association’s day-to-day operations continue to run smoothly. Thank you, Anita! And welcome, Irena! With the change in administrator comes a change of our business address: Our new mailbox is hosted by the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Please mark the new AABS address in your records. The past year has also been an occasion to assess our Association’s history. We are partnering with the University of Washington as the home for the AABS Archive. The archive’s core comes from the office of the late Jānis Gaigulis; we have finished an inventory of forty boxes of files, and deposited these materials at the University of Washington Libraries. In the coming year, we will work with the UW to catalog and process the collection for permanent storage. We invite all AABS members and board members, past and present, to donate AABS-related correspondence, photographs and other documents from their personal archives to our new AABS archive.

Guntis Šmidchens, AABS President AABS Welcomes Irena Blekys as Administrative Executive Director Amanda Swain In July 2009, AABS welcomed a new Administrative Executive Director. Irena Blekys of Seattle replaced Anita Juberts, who has served AABS since 2002. Irena brings a wide variety of skills and experience to this position. Most importantly, she brings a strong commitment to AABS’s mission. Although Irena was aware of AABS before 1990, her first involvement with the association came during the annual conference in Seattle that year. Irena recalls that the “Seattle conference was espe- cially memorable for me because it was the first time that delegations of scholars and publishers from the Baltic states joined their counterparts from North America and Europe. These were the years of historic change. I volunteered as part of the Seattle community to welcome our visitors from Lithu- ania: picking them up at the airport, chauffeuring, housing, even proofreading someone's English- language paper. Our local Lithuanians hosted an evening to meet the visitors. For many of us, it left a sense of the importance of supporting Baltic scholarship.” Irena Blekys A few years later, Irena became actively involved in efforts to establish a Baltic Studies Program at the University of Wash- ington. She credits the Baltic communities’ experience with the AABS conference as a factor in their enthusiasm and success AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 25 in supporting the new program. As she explains, “the ground was fertile when the local Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian communities were invited in 1993/1994 to build a Baltic Studies endowment at the University of Washington.” In addition to working as a volunteer on fundraising events, Irena is currently secretary of the Scandinavian Studies Department Advisory Board (the home department of the Baltic Studies Program). Irena has continued to be involved with AABS. She says, “As an independent scholar, I've always felt grateful that AABS has welcomed the general public to its association and its conferences. My interest in history and literature has been enriched by these conferences and by the friendships that developed out of them, even if we only met every two years at AABS. Fi- nally, in 2006, I had an opportunity to introduce the wartime diary of a Lithuanian partisan, Lionginas Baliukevičius, which I was translating at the time. I received a lot of valuable encouragement and comments as I was finishing that work, which is now in print.” She is looking forward to being part of the AABS conference when it returns to Seattle in 2010. As Administrative Executive Director, Irena will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the association, a challenge that she is looking forward to taking on. At her first board meeting in July, Irena Dear AABS friends and colleagues, expressed her enthusiasm for her new After eight years as AABS’s administrative executive director, position. “I am very excited to learn I have passed along my responsibilities to Irena Blekys. I wanted about AABS from the operations side to take this opportunity to thank my all of my former colleagues, of the association. I'm impressed with AABS presidents, directors and board members, for their great the dedication and hard work of the support and cooperation over the years. I also want to send my current board in running the business best wishes to the members of AABS, with many of whom I have of AABS. I'm grateful both to Anita had the privilege of becoming personally acquainted over the Juberts, the outgoing administrative course of my tenure. As members of AABS, you have played a director as we change the office from vital role in supporting Baltic Studies and assuring its future. the East coast to the West coast, and I wish AABS, its members and its new Administrative Executive Director Irena especially to the current President, Blekys every success in the years to come. Guntis Šmidchens, who has put in ex- With best regards, tra time to make sure that the transi- Anita Juberts tion goes smoothly.”

AABS Welcomes Dr. Terry Clark as Editor of the Journal of Baltic Studies

Dr. Terry Clark is Professor of tics and Societies, and Journal of Baltic Studies. He has received political science and the director grants to support his research and travel from the American Politi- of the graduate program in cal Science Association (APSA), the Fulbright Committee, the In- international relations (INR). A ternational Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the MacArthur specialist in comparative politics, Foundation, and the Kennan Institute. He is currently engaged in he received his B.S. from the United the fuzzy math spatial modeling project. The project’s long-term States Military Academy at West goals are to improve the capacity of spatial models to predict stable Point in 1973, the M.A. from he outcomes and the empirical validity of those predictions, and to University of Illinois at Urbana- provide a touchstone for further applications of fuzzy mathematics Champaign in 1988, and the Ph.D. in the social sciences. from the University of Illinois Dr. Clark teaches undergraduate courses and graduate seminars at Urbana-Champaign in 1992. A in comparative politics, research design, the new institutionalism, member of Phi Beta Kappa, he international relations, international regimes, and the government manages Creighton University’s Terry D. Clark and politics of Eastern Europe. He has been recognized for out- long-standing exchange with standing teaching by both Creighton University and the Creigh- Vilnius University, which has brought more than three dozen ton College of Arts and Sciences. His students have won national scholars to the United States to study and conduct research in awards for research, and several have been accepted into Ph.D. pro- comparative politics and international relations. grams in political science in major universitites, including Harvard Dr. Clark has published four books and numerous articles in University, The Johns Hopkins University, the University of Illi- journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Public Choice, PS: nois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Iowa, the University Political Science and Politics, Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of of Minnesota, and Washington University in St. Louis. He and his Post-Communism, Slavic Review, EEPS: Eastern European Poli- wife, Marnie, have a daughter, Jessica.

Elections for the 2010-2012 AABS Board The 2010 AABS conference will take place in Seattle, Washington from April 22-24, 2010. This is a break from the more frequent June dates for AABS conferences (good news for those of us who want to celebrate Midsummer’s Eve). As a result, elections for the 2010-2012 AABS board will also take place at an earlier date. Ballots will be sent to members on February 1, 2009. Completed ballots must be received before March 10, 2009. As William Hale Thompson likely said, “vote early – and often!” On second thought, only follow the first part of that advice and vote early for the 2010 AABS Board. 26 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 Report of the Editor, Journal of Baltic Studies David J. Smith an online presence following the start pear in parallel book format. Proposals After five very busy but enjoyable of the current publishing agreement be- for several more special issues are in the years, I am stepping down as Editor of tween AABS and Routledge. As a result pipeline. My thanks also to all of our re- the Journal of Baltic Studies, due to of this, the number of libraries world- cent guest editors, who have brought to other commitments. wide in which the Journal is available light valuable new perspectives on some It only remains for me to thank all of has increased almost fivefold, and is of the most salient issues facing the three the members of the outgoing editorial set to grow further in the future. More Baltic states and their wider region. term for their contribution to what has people than ever are reading and citing The Journal has also retained and de- been an exciting new phase in the Jour- the Journal of Baltic Studies, as can be veloped its focus on the wider region, nal’s development. Eva-Clarita Onken seen from the growth in our impact fac- understood not simply as ‘Baltoscan- has been responsible for a number of new tor, from 0.143 in 2007 to 0.419 in 2008. dinavia’, but as encompassing all of features, such as the books received and This has taken us from 32nd to 20th out the societies of the Baltic littoral. This new dissertations sections and the peri- of the 38 world leading Area Studies area remains prominent within debates odic reviews of scholarship in countries journals. Consequently, we are attract- on the overall future political shape of that have hitherto not featured espe- ing more and better contributions from Europe, as can be seen in the new EU cially prominently on the Baltic Studies across a wider spread of countries. Par- Baltic strategy and the continued dis- map. Sarah Lennon and, more recently, ticularly welcome during my editorship cussions on the Northern and Eastern our Journal Assistant Hazel MacKenzie has been the number of special issues Dimensions. In short, it remains an ex- have helped to ensure the efficient op- that have appeared. The Baltic sociolin- citing time to study the Baltic. I hope eration of the editorial and copy prepa- guistic review appeared in summer 2005, that my successor finds the role of Edi- ration process at a time when the num- and the special issue on Foreign Rule and tor as rewarding as I have. ber of contributions to the Journal has Collaboration (including been steadily increasing. I will miss our Karsten Brüggemann’s Vi- discussions of all things Baltic! I would tols Prize-winning article) also like to thank all of the members of in spring 2006. We then the JBS Advisory Board, Richard Dela- waited two years before hunty, Gerald Dorey, Adam Leary and four came along at once – Keri Barrow at Routledge publishers, on musicology, politics of and everyone who has set aside valu- history, post-communist able time to act as a peer reviewer for transition revisited and the Journal over the past five years. contemporary environ- In 2007 Journal of Baltic Studies mentalism. All have either Journal of Baltic Studies Editorial team: from left to right, Sarah gained a new appearance and acquired appeared or are set to ap- Lennon, Hazel MacKenzie and David J. Smith

Baltic Studies Summer Institute 2009 Nancy Heingartner, BALSSI Program Co- was taught by Piibi-Kai Kivik of Indiana Uni- BALSSI 2009 Cultural Events ordinator, and Jennifer Tishler, CREECA versity; three students completed the Latvian June 16, Associate Director, University of Wiscon- course, which was taught by Dr. Dzidra Rodins Film The Singing Revolution sin-Madison of DePaul University; and seven students com- (2006, 94 minutes, Estonia) The sixteenth annual Baltic Studies Summer In- pleted the Lithuanian course, which was taught June 23, stitute took place at the University of Wisconsin- by Daiva Litvinskaite of the University of Illi- Lecture by Robert J. Kaiser, Madison between June 15 and August 7, 2009. nois-Chicago. UW-Madison, Professor of Ge- BALSSI was co-sponsored on campus by the de- Among the topics the graduate participants are ography: Post-Soviet Border- partment of Scandinavian studies and the Center researching are: Lithuanian conceptual art from lands as Diaspora Spaces: The for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia (CREE- the 1960’s until 2000; heritage identity, foreign Case of Setomaa CA). In all, fourteen students were enrolled in the language literacy, and discourse communities; June 30, 7:00 p.m. three language courses. The faculty director for Latvian subject formation and Baltic identity; Film The Waterfowl People BALSSI 2009 was Tom DuBois, the Birgit Bald- masculine Relationships in Russian and East Euro- (1970, 50 minutes, Estonia) win Professor of Scandinavian Studies. pean Literature; accent type and language change BALSSI 2009 offered three intensive language in German and Estonian; the Arajs Kommando, June 30, 8:00 p.m. Film The Winds of the Milky courses: elementary Latvian, elementary Lithu- a Latvian execution squad in the Holocaust; and Way (1977, 55 minutes, Estonia) anian, and elementary Estonian (Scandinavian the Development of a clean energy industry in the 404: Languages of Northern Europe). Two un- Baltics. July 7 dergraduates, ten graduate students, and two BALSSI 2009 was enhanced significantly by Lecture by Alfred E. Senn, UW- non-students participated in BALSSI 2009. Four the rich program of lectures and cultural offer- Madison, Professor Emeritus of History: students completed the Estonian course, which ings that accompanied it. All of these events were What is Lithuania? AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 29 July 8 free and open to the public. Attendance ranged Indiana University (Inner Asian & Uralic National Re- Film Kurpe (1998, 83 minutes, from six to thirty-one people. In addition to the source Center, and Russian & East European Institute); Latvia) public events, there was a welcome picnic on June University of Michigan (Center for Russian and East 15th hosted by the Madison-Vilnius Sister Cities European Studies); July 14 organization, a field trip to Eesti Maja (Estonian University of Pittsburgh (Center for Russian and East Film Balkonas (2008, 48 min- utes, Lithuania) House) in Riverwoods, IL on June 20th, a July 25th European Studies, and European Studies Center /Euro- field trip to the Balzekas Museum in Chicago and pean Union Center of Excellence); July 21 to Grand Duke’s Lithuanian Restaurant in Summit, Stanford University (Center for Russian, East Euro- Lecture by Rudra Vilius IL, and a farewell picnic on August 6th. pean & Eurasian Studies); Dundzila, Harry S. Truman In 2009, BALSSI received generous financial University of Texas (Center for Russian, East Euro- College, City Colleges of Chi- cago, Professor of Humanities support from fifteen Title VI Area Studies Centers pean & Eurasian Studies); and Comparative Religion: “A at twelve universities: University of Washington (Ellison Center for Russian, Poplar Stood by the Road- UCLA (Center for European & Eurasian Studies); East European and Central Asian Studies); side:” A Sojourn With Baltic University of Chicago (Center for East European and University of Wisconsin (Center for Russia, East Eu- Myths, Songs, Russian/Eurasian Studies); rope, and Central Asia). and Spirituality Columbia University (East Central European Center); BALSSI also received generous financial support July 23 Harvard University (Davis Center for Russian and from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Dance Demonstration by Eurasian Studies); Studies, the American Latvian Youth Association, Žaibas Lithuanian Dancers University of Illinois (European Union Center, and as well as two external grants from ACLS and the Russian, East European and Eurasian Center); Lithuanian Foundation. July 28 Lecture by Paulis Lazda, UW-Eau Claire, Professor of History: The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia

July 29 Film Kevade (1969, 84 minutes, Estonia)

August 3 Film Shorts The Best Wa- terpieces Ever (2002-2007, Latvia) BALSSI 2009 students and faculty

ACLS Meeting in Portland, Oregon Olavi Arens Each fall the American Council of Learned Societies schedules a meeting of the executive officers of its member associations. The meetings are held in different cities and the costs are covered by the host city’s convention center. One of the purposes of the meetings is to provide an opportunity for representatives of the member societies to tour the host city’s convention facilities and discuss with hotel representatives the possibility of holding their conferences in the host city. The meetings are also used by the member associations to discuss issues of common concern. This fall’s meeting was held in Portland, Oregon on 5-8 No- vember 2009. The Executive Committee of the association of- AABS 2008-2009 Book Prize ficers met at the beginning of the meeting to begin planning for Nomination Deadline: February 18, 2010 the annual spring meeting of the ACLS in Philadelphia. Olavi The Association awards the AABS Book Prize for an outstanding Arens, a member of the committee, was selected to chair the English-language scholarly book in Baltic Studies (humanities and nominating committee for the spring elections of new commit- social sciences) published in 2008 or 2009. Books with a broadly tee members. historical, literary, social, or cultural significance are of particular Representatives of approximately 50 of the 70 member as- interest. Narrowly specialized or overly technical books will not be sociations attended. Reports were heard on ACLS activities considered. To nominate, please send a letter of nomination to Dr. during the past year: the ACLS sponsored Leadership Seminars Bradley Woodworth at [email protected] or by mail to: held in the fall, the ACLS’ E-book project, etc. As usual, a rep- Dr. Bradley Woodworth resentative of the National Humanities Alliance gave a report. Div. of Global Studies, History and Political Science Then a representative of the Teagle Foundation discussed the University of New Haven relationship of learned societies and undergraduate education. 300 Boston Post Road Discussion followed on various uses of new technologies to West Haven, CT 06516 USA build virtual communities for scholarly research, to construct on- line photo archives, and to develop new ways of communicating Anyone may submit a nomination. The winner will be announced at among members. A closing session discussed what is changing the 2010 AABS/SASS conference. The author(s) of the book selected in the societies (use of new technologies, graduate students on will receive an award of up to $500. boards, etc.) and the impact of the economic downturn on as- sociation activities. 30 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 US-Baltic Fulbright Exchanges (continued from p. 24) Margaret Rung, Associate Professor, School of Liberal of Washington in 2007-2008. He describes his experience Studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, shares through the exchange program. her experience as a Fulbright scholar in Latvia in 2000-2001 This was my first time visiting Washington state and on the CIES web site: Seattle and very soon I felt at home. Probably one rea- Rung’s award was for lectures (in the University of son for that was warm connections with Baltic commu- Latvia’s History Department and North American nity and all the open and friendly people I met. I value Studies Center), not research. But what she discovered also Seattle’s environmental awareness. in Riga about Latvian “narratives” of World War II The Fellowship was about more than gaining knowl- aroused her professional curiosity about the relation- edge of individual professions; personal growth is just ship between “accidents of geography and the way a as valuable. I was able to use my time in Seattle to see country writes its own history.” In the U.S., the war has how I can adjust to the U.S. melting pot and to see what been seen as a “good” one with a clear-cut enemy, she kind of person I am. Coming to the United States was an explains; yet to Latvians it was a “senseless bloodbath” opportunity to learn also about other cultures. Profes- in which soldiers from other places “stomped through, sional learning can be done through the Internet and deporting or conscripting people, and then either left-or books but the interaction in the exchange program with occupied the country.” She is now working to connect co-fellows and students is a unique opportunity to re- the University of Latvia to a broader international com- flect and learn about yourself, your culture and your munity of scholars, through exchange programs with way of observing world, while living with people of vari- institutions in Mississippi and Wisconsin, and expects ous nations. People’s lifestyles are different everywhere. her Latvian experience to enrich her teaching about It’s interesting to find out if it’s cultural things or human ethnicity at Roosevelt. things making differences between people. The exchange programs are not unidirectional, however. In establishing the US Fulbright international exchange An equivalent number of students and scholars from Esto- program, Senator J. William Fulbright, said “Fostering lead- nia, Latvia and Lithuania have their own stories to share from ership, learning and empathy between cultures was and re- exchanges to the United States. The Humphrey Fellowship mains the purpose of the international scholarship program.” brings mid-professionals from the entire globe to the United The stories of my fellow exchange participants over the years, States for non-degree graduate study and work related expe- of which these are just a taste, demonstrate that the programs rience, including six weeks of professional affiliation. Silver are fulfilling these goals. Pramman, Estonia, was a Humphrey Fellow at the University Baltic Studies Conference at Vytautas Magnus University Olavi Arens The 8th Conference on Baltic Studies in tralia. While the traditionally strong areas of ferences in alternating years in North America Europe (The Baltics as an Intersection of Baltic Studies (history, linguistics, and politi- and Europe thus continues. Civilizational Identities) was held on 11-14 cal science) still dominated the conference, one Participants who arrived early took part June 2009 in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Chair could see diversity, as non-traditional areas also in a walking tour of Kaunas. Those able to of the conference, Ineta Dabašinskienė, received coverage -- sessions and papers were stay an extra day were treated to a tour of greeted the participants in behalf of the host devoted to gender studies, media studies and Vilnius that included what remains of Jewish university, Vytautas Magnus University, a art and theater. A selection of the papers will Vilnius. university reestablished in 1989 in the city be published by of Kaunas that had been the capital city of the conference interwar Lithuania. The President of Lith- organizers. uania, Valdas Adamkus, warmly greeted During the the participating scholars in Lithuanian and banquet it was in English. The keynote speech by Leoni- announced that das Donskis centered on the theme of tra- the next Baltic ditions of political liberalism in the Baltic Studies Confer- area. Co-sponsors of the conference were ence in Europe the Lithuanian State Science and Studies will be hosted Foundation and the Lithuanian Ministry of by Södertörn Foreign Affairs. University in While not everyone listed in the program was Stockholm, able to attend, approximately 180 presenters or Sweden in June co-presenters of papers were listed. Scholars 2011. from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia provided The tradition one-half of the papers. The rest came from of holding Bal- elsewhere in Europe, North America or Aus- tic Studies con- President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus attending the conference AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010 31 NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 535 LINCOLN, NE

AABS, University of Washington, Box 353420, Seattle WA 98195-3420

POSTMASTER: Address Correction Requested

The AABS is an international educational and scholarly non-profit organization. The purpose of the Association isthe promotion of research and education in Baltic Studies. Its activities include sponsoring meetings and conferences for the exchange of scholarly views, the evaluation of research in Baltic Studies and supporting the publication of research and other information about Baltic Studies. Membership is open to anyone wishing to support these endeavors. All AABS memberships include complimentary subscriptions to the quarterly Journal of Baltic Studies and the Baltic Studies Newsletter. Membership dues are not tax deductible as charitable contributions but may be deductible, depending on individual circumstances, as miscellaneous professional expenses. All donations to the Baltic Studies Fund are deductible in the United States as provided by law.

To communicate with us, detach the entire sheet including your address and send it to the return address printed above. [ ] Please note my address correction above. [ ] Please send me additional information about the AABS including a membership application. [ ] Please send me information about the Baltic Studies Fund. [ ] Please send me additional information about the AABS, including a membership application (Membership forms may also be downloaded at the AABS website, http://depts.washington.edu/aabs/)

Check the type of membership desired (annual dues in parentheses): □ student ($25.00) □ Baltic resident ($25.00) □ retired ($35.00) □ regular ($60.00) □ sponsor ($100.00) □ patron ($500.00) □ life membership ($2000.00) Libraries and institutions may subscribe to the Baltic Studies Newsletter for $ 25 a year.

The Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies reserves the right to reject editorial material sent in for publication in the Baltic Studies Newsletter is not in agreement with the goals and purposes of the organization. Manuscripts accepted for publication will be edited to conform to the style of Baltic Studies Newsletter, space limitations, and other requirements. Accuracy in editorial material is the responsibility of the author and/or contributor. Baltic Studies Newsletter disclaims any responsibility for statements made by contributors.

Copyright ©2010 by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, Inc. Material may be republished in publications whose aims are compatible with those of the AABS only with the permission of the Editor. CIRCULATION: 1200

32 AABS Baltic Studies Newsletter • Winter 2010